Dieting on the decline

Retailers might want to reconsider store brand product development geared toward dieting consumers. Dieting is no longer considered the only way to address health concerns these days, and has taken on a fairly negative connotation, according to Harry Balzer, chief industry analyst for The NPD Group and author of Eating Patterns in America. Instead, the discussion now is really about having a balanced diet, he told Private Label Store Brands magazine, as well as avoiding foods with harmful substances and adding foods with beneficial ingredients.

In addition, recently released research by The NPD Group, a Chicago-based information company, notes that a generation gap exists when it comes to dieting. More than a quarter of baby boomers are on a diet at any given time, while only 12 percent of millennials diet.

“Millennials will diet more as they age, but the core dieters in this country are boomers,” said Harry Balzer, chief industry analyst for The NPD Group and author of Eating Patterns in America. “But fewer of us are dieting. Americans are looking for other ways to define health.”

These trends are part of a long-term decline in dieting. Dieting peaked in 1991, when nearly 30 percent of adults reported being on a diet during a typical two-week period. However, only 19 percent of adults report being on a diet in the last year, according to The NPD Group’s National Eating Trends Service, which examines top-of-mind dieting and nutrition, as well as actual eating and drinking habits. â?? M. Sorensen