Changing food habits & yo-yo dieting

First a disclosure and an admission. I am no diet expert. But I am fascinated by the growth of the ‘diet industry’ in India. Two decades ago when someone said “I am on a diet”, that was it. You assumed that they would be eating less of everything, especially sugar and fats. But today those few words lead to a whole discourse: “I am trying the keto diet this year. I had tried the vegan diet earlier. And last year it was the Atkins”. If by chance there is someone else in the room who is on a different diet, you are in for some fun kibitzing.  

How many diets are there? Here is a shortlist of diets that you can find on Google: ketogenic diet, paleo diet, whole30 diet, vegan diet, MIND, low foomap diet, weightwatchers diet, Atkins diet, gluten-free diet, felxitarian diet (the last one is where the person switches from vegetarian to vegan to non-vegetarian diets; hence ‘flexi’). 

The term “yo-yo dieting” was coined by Prof Kelly Brownell of Yale University. As the name suggests he studied the phenomenon of people going on diets, losing significant weight, then going off diet, only to put the lost weight back on. As a result their weight “yo-yos” and hence the term “yo-yo dieting” also known as “weight cycling”. WebMD lists this as “losing and putting back weight”, from 50 pounds (severe weight cycling) to 10 pounds (moderate weight cycling). For those of you getting worried, WebMD does not say that this can cause serious harm to your vital organs. But who knows? 

With a growing number of affluent urban Indians going on diets, there is a whole new world opening up for savvy marketers. As a leading VC, V S Sitaram (quoted in The Mint, September 12), says there are a number of start-ups that are tapping into the diet game. According to him, there are broadly three types of modern packaged food brands: The “Better4You” brands, contain less of salt, sugar, fats, calories. Then there are the “Clean4You” brands that are sourced from organic farms; the range covers all that you consume including rice, wheat, sugar etc. The final type is the “Good4You” brands. These could in fact be a combination of the first two, but they contain foods that are good for you such as nuts, seeds, proteins; they also go low on maida, processed sugar etc. 

Anthropologists do tell us that food habits are the most difficult to change. Despite all the efforts by Kellogg, we Indians still prefer a hot spicy breakfast. Hence, the relative success of masala oats. 

National food and health studies tell us that our food habits are indeed slowly and steadily changing. There is this myth that Indians are largely vegetarian. Yes, an Indian non-vegetarian home does not consume meat or eggs every day, but we are very much a non-vegetarian country. Less than a quarter of our country is vegetarian. In states such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, West Bengal and northeast non-vegetarians are more than 90 per cent. The other important phenomenon is the growing appetite for non-vegetarian foods from the middle and lower classes. Consumption of eggs is on the way up. So is the consumption of chicken and fish. Meat eating has been on the rise even in the less non-vegetarian northern states. Only Rajasthan is holding on to its vegetarianism. The growth of non-vegetarianism could be linked to growing affluence and the fact that tandoori chicken’ has great aspiration appeal, far outgunning dal-chawal. 

Tapping the dieting consumer and the consumer who is moving towards non-vegetarian foods offer two very different opportunities. 

Packaged food brands have been trying to offer a variety of products to the diet conscious. Granola bars are replacing samosas. Protein bars are finding ready acceptance among the yoga consumer. Unheard of products like kale and celery juices, quinoa/chia/flax seeds, goji berries, and other superfoods are on offer at your neighbourhood dry fruits store. Butter and coconut oil are back as the good guys; refined vegetable oils are still in the dog-house though. Desi millets are on the rise and you can even get premium branded low glycemic index brown rice. 

The growth in non-vegetarianism should open up new opportunities for supermarkets in the bigger cities. But some of them are devoutly vegetarian. I suspect there will be a change in this scenario in the next 10 years. Food marketing in India has just begun since most of what we consume as foods is still unbranded. So there is great opportunity for a multitude of players, from supermarket’s own brands to curated brands from start-ups aimed at the affluent dieters. 

Yo-yo diets will probably continue but in their wake they will also give a leg up to some exciting new products and services. Hopefully even if our weight yo-yos our overall health will keep getting better.  

The author is an independent brand strategist, author, and founder Brand-Building.com. Email: ambimgp@brand-building.com