The new year is just around the corner, and it’s the time when people plan their weight loss resolution.

But data analyzed by the digital weight loss coach Noom, has identified the U.S. cities that will statistically fail with New Year’s weight goals.

The data, analyzed by scientists, nutritionists and Noom, comes from more than 20 million people across the country that log in their daily meals, workouts and calorie intake. The data gives researchers an insight on which parts of the population will have a hard time sticking to their weight goals, which includes having difficulty changing their eating and exercise habits based on their daily diet and body mass index (BMI).

“Change is very hard,” said Noom’s Mona Giambruno, “It’s difficult, it’s a process, it takes time.”

Noom is a digital health platform with human coaching via its mobile app that helps people with weight loss, diabetes management, hypertension management, lifestyle factors and changes in their intake behaviors. Noom uses color codes to identify good and bad foods. For example, Noom’s red category includes foods that are the most calorie dense, such as red meat, ice cream, cake, nuts, etc.

“The red, yellow, green system is helping people be more aware of what they’re eating,” said Giambruno. “There’s good news there for sure.”

In the New Year’s Resolution data analysis, scientists, nutritionists and Noom identified which states are eating the most red foods. They found that Arkansas and North Dakota are the two states that eat the most caloric dense food in the country, with about 38 percent of their diet involving red foods.

These are the top 10 States that consume the most caloric foods:

1) Arkansas

2) North Dakota

3) Montana

4) Wyoming

5) Maine

6) South Dakota

7) Utah

8) Oklahoma

9) New Hampshire

10) Wisconsin

Residents in those states could have trouble transitioning to a healthier diet with less red foods, but people in those states shouldn’t ditch their New Year’s resolution.

“[That] doesn’t necessarily mean that people in those states won’t be successful,” said Giambruno, “But they have more work to do.”

“When you’re looking at the states with the high percentages, portion sizes are much larger,” said Jennifer Major, a nutritionist with Noom. “You don’t have to necessarily take them out of the diet. The approach people take on weight loss is to cut it out, the important part is finding the middle ground.”

Researchers also looked at U.S. cities with the highest BMI rates, which are the places where inhabitants will have the most weight to lose in the upcoming year.

The top 10 cities with the highest BMI were:

  1. Columbus

  2. Houston

  3. San Antonio

  4. Philadelphia

  5. Phoenix

  6. Atlanta

  7. Dallas

  8. Austin

  9. Chicago

  10. Seattle

Long Term Weight Loss

But people don’t have to wait until the New Year to start their weight loss strategy, Major says.

“Why wait until the New Year’s?” said Major, adding that keeping track of what you eat brings “awareness and mindfulness,” especially during the holidays when “there is a lot of red meat and sweets.”

Major says achieving your goal weight shouldn’t consist of “super prescriptive or very rigid” diets. She says people tend to do that for a month and then get burned out, and end up ignoring long term weight maintenance. Increase in exercise and decrease in calories helps lose weight, but the behavioral component is vital in keeping off the weight long term, says Major.

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