| ||Food for Thought || | Healthy Eating in Wintertime Last
reviewed and revised by Faculty of Harvard Medical School on
January 16, 2013 By Caitlin Hosmer, M.S., R.D., L.D.N. and
Heather Hawkes Brigham and Women's Hospital Winter ushers in a
time of the year when we choose heavier foods and are typically
less active. Does this winter shift sound familiar to you? While
the temperatures drop outside, it is easy for us to drop good
eating and exercise habits. We are most vulnerable to weight
gain in the six-week interval between Thanksgiving and New
Year's Day. A study conducted by the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) suggested that a typical one-pound gain during the
holiday season for Americans may be small, but can accumulate
through the years and contribute to obesity later in life. Once
we put on that extra pound or more, we often don't get back to
our baseline weight later in January. How does it happen?
Volunteers in the NIH study were asked about factors that might
influence weight change, including