UK Shoppers are Making and Breaking ‘New Week Resolutions’

27 Feb 2015 --- Despite the fact that, for most of us, the shelf life of our New Year’s resolutions has already passed, analysis of Tesco data shows we attempt to renew our resolve on a regular basis with ‘new week resolutions’, which also fail to stick.

The data, revealing that Monday is consistently the healthiest shopping day of the week, has been released by the new Charity Partnership formed between the British Heart Foundation, Diabetes UK and Tesco.

On Mondays, shoppers start off with the best of intentions and are more likely to buy healthier products like fruit and vegetables, prepared fruit, bananas and dried fruit.

Later in the week people are much more likely to load up on unhealthy treats like crisps, cakes, desserts and sweets. Wednesday and Thursday, according to the data, are on average the least healthy shopping days of the week.

One of the key aims of the new Charity Partnership is to encourage people to make small permanent changes to their lifestyle – which are more achievable long term – rather than these weekly resolutions which are easily broken. If you eat a healthy diet and keep your weight in check, you’ll be less likely to develop cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.

To help to make these changes permanent, the Charity Partnership has launched two “10 Minutes to Change Your Life” guides which are designed to help people make small changes to their daily routine that can make a big difference their health.

Tesco are also offering 40,000 free health checks at in their in-store pharmacies until March 9 to help people kick start this new healthy living plan.

Jenna Hall, Programme Director of the Tesco National Charity Partnership said: “This data shows that every week people have the best of intentions when it comes to making healthier shopping choices, but find it hard to sustain as the week goes on due to the pressures of modern living.”

“The Charity Partnership wants to make it easier for people to make little changes to improve their health which they are more likely to stick to long term rather than starting from scratch every week. So, we’re challenging people to take 10 minutes every day to make small changes so they’ll be less likely to develop cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.”

Josh Hardie, Corporate Responsibility Director for Tesco said: “We need to make it easy for our customers to make small changes to the way they shop every day and not just at the beginning of the week. Our customers want us to help them lead healthier lives, and that’s why we have removed sweets and chocolates from checkouts at all our stores and we have removed billions of calories from our ranges by changing the recipes to reduce their sugar, salt and fat content. We want to do everything we can to help our customers make healthier choices at Tesco.”

The Charity Partnership will use data from a wide range of sources –including Tesco – to inform initiatives that will help us all better understand how to lead a healthy lifestyle. These initiatives will be funded over the next three years with money raised by the partnership, which aims to collect £30 million and has the ultimate ambition to make a positive change to the health of the nation.

The two guides, “10 Minutes to Change Your Life”, focus on tips on how people can make small lifestyle changes that will go on to make a big difference to their health. Tips include how to eat a healthier diet and how to fit exercise into a busy lifestyle. The guides are available to download for free from www.tescocharitypartnership.org.uk.

Tesco is also offering a free Health Check for 40,000 shoppers at Tesco pharmacies around the country until 9 March 2015. The Health Check takes about 30 minutes and involves checking your BMI (body mass index), blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose levels. It will help give customers an idea of how healthy they are and whether they need to start thinking about adopting a few healthier lifestyle habits.

At the start of the year Tesco removed sweets and chocolates from checkouts at all stores and replaced them with healthier products, to help customers to lead healthier lives by reducing the temptation to throw some unhealthy snacks in the basket at the end of a shopping trip. It will hopefully also reduce pester power which will be a big incentive for young families to shop more healthily , as according to Tesco data this group tend to have the least healthy shopping baskets compared to other groups.