High-protein diets and superhero workouts — those were two of the most sought-after topics on the Internet in 2011.
Or at least according to the number crunchers at Google. Recently, the popular search engine company released the results of its 11th annual “Zeitgeist” report, which includes a compilation of the most popular and fastest-rising search terms of the year. The company sorted through billions of worldwide Google searches throughout 2011 to come up with its results.
While Rebecca Black, the teenager whose infamous auto-tuned song and viral video, “Friday,” was the most popular search term of 2011 in the United States, health topics were also high on the list. In the workout category, health-conscious Americans were extremely interested in learning how to look like the muscular lead character in the superhero movie “Thor,” starring Chris Hemsworth, followed by the “Ryan Gosling workout,” the “Chris Hemsworth workout,” and the “Captain America workout.”
As for diets, it appeared that many Americans were looking to emulate the high-protein eating habits of many celebrities and tabloid fixtures. “Dukan diet” was the No. 1 search term in the fastest-rising diet category, followed by the “four-hour diet” and “17-days diet.” The Dukan diet, a protein-based eating plan developed by the French nutritionist Pierre Dukan, was well known in France but skyrocketed in popularity this year after reports that Kate Middleton had used it to drop two dress sizes before her wedding to Prince William. The diet has also been linked to celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Gisele Bundchen. But it is not without its detractors. Last month the British Dietetic Association named it one of its “Top 5 Worst Celebrity Diets to Avoid in the New Year.”
Diets were all the rage as well on Bing, Microsoft’s answer to Google, with “Weight Watchers” and “diet/obesity” two of the top health-related search terms among its users in 2011. Meanwhile, another Google rival, Yahoo!, released its own search results, which found that “pregnancy symptoms,” “diabetes symptoms” and “gall bladder symptoms” were its top three health symptom searches of 2011. The search engine also released a detailed list of the top health questions that its users plugged into Yahoo! throughout 2011. Among those that made the list: “Is a fatty breakfast better than a low-fat breakfast?” “What is physical fitness?” “What is dementia?” and “What causes pancreatic cancer?”
Some Yahoo! topics varied in popularity by month. The terms “sunscreen,” “poison oak rash” and “sinusitis” spiked in popularity in May, spurred no doubt by Americans heading outdoors with fears of sunburns and allergic reactions in mind. But the reasons for the sudden interest in other search topics were less clear. The phrase “treating depression” spiked between March and August, for example, and “What is bipolar disorder?” saw a jump in searches in March, April and August.
