Daylight saving time may be setting back your healthy habits, new research suggests.
On March 10, most people across the U.S. put their clocks forward by an hour to mark the beginning of daylight saving time. The concept was invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1784 to maximize daylight hours and conserve candle use. However, today, daylight saving time may actually increase our energy use in the form of heating and air conditioning. And energy conservation is not the only thing to worry about here.
Experts have warned that the change in our daily light exposure can throw our internal body clocks out of whack, making it harder to sleep and, over time, threatening our mental and physical well-being. This desynchronization of our body clocks may also affect our behavior, especially when it comes to healthy habits.
"There's quite a bit of research in health fields related to how well-being is affected by daylight saving time," Ram Janakiraman, a professor of marketing analytics at North Carolina State University's Poole College of Management, said in a statement. "We wanted to explore similar issues through the lens of consumer behavior, giving us new insights into how daylight saving influences the decisions we make."
To investigate these effects, Janakiraman and colleagues at NC State analyzed data collected from a nationally representative cohort of participants using mobile phones to record detailed data on their snack consumption. The data, which was collected by a U.S. snack company, was taken between 2004 and 2010.
"This data set is remarkable because it spans multiple years, and tracks specifically what people are eating," Janakiraman says. "Many other data sets look at what people buy, or rely on people remembering what they'd eaten. This data was collected using a methodology that had study participants enter their consumption in the moment."
The data included consumption trends in the days leading up to the onset of daylight saving time, as well as the days following it. It also included data from parts of the U.S. that do not observe daylight saving time, allowing them to serve as a control group.
The researchers then pulled a second data set from a company that operates hundreds of fitness centers across the U.S. Again, this data stretch over the onset period of daylight saving time, indicating how often customers visited the gym in the weeks before and after the clocks went forward. And again, the parts of the U.S. that do not observe daylight saving time were used as a control.
After analyzing both sets of data, it became clear that people ate more processed snacks in the days after daylight saving time and began visiting the gym less often.
"This effect was stronger in people who are irregular gym users," Rishika Rishika, co-author of the study and an associate professor of marketing at NC State, said in a statement. "People who have a regular gym schedule were less affected by the time change. This negative effect of daylight saving time was also more pronounced the further people live from the gym."
These effects were also particularly pronounced on cloudy days. However, the same changes in behavior were not observed when the clocks went back in autumn.
Overall, this data adds to a growing body of evidence that daylight saving time may have negative impacts on our overall physical and mental well-being.
"One big take-away for consumers is that we need to be mindful about trying to maintain healthy habits after daylight saving time," Rishika said.
Janakiraman added: "The findings also suggest there is a need for public policies that support people when we're setting the clock forward."
The study, titled Spring Forward = Fall Back? the Effect of Daylight Saving Time Change on Consumers' Unhealthy Behavior, was published in the Journal of Marketing.
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