the buzz log
The Belly Bandit Strikes Again!
You had a kid. Congratulations! Now that you've had a few minutes to relax and bond with your baby, it's time to lose that paunch! Come with us as we take a look at the latest trend in stomach concealment: the Belly Bandit.
The nefarious sounding contraption recently achieved breakout status in Search after an appearance on the Rachael Ray Show. According to its official site, the Belly Bandit is a "abdominal compression binder." In other words, it's a wrap that compresses the loose skin around the stomachs of new moms. Allegedly.
According to this blog, a woman on Rachael's show contested that her use of the Belly Bandit helped trim some stubborn inches. Such a statement was bound to lead to big buzz. After all, who wouldn't be interested in something that makes us look better and doesn't require any real effort?
We have no idea if the thing works or not, but folks are sure hot to find out for themselves. Lookups for "belly bandit" and "buy the belly bandit" are soaring. Ms. Ray's exposé clearly struck a chord.
Filed under: Diets, Rachael Ray
What’s the Buzz: Dine-1-1
It's a question that most of us are confronted with every evening: What's for dinner? Hungry surfers are setting their searches to yum.
… Hold the meat, please. Searches for "macrobiotic diet" surged 1001%, likely on the news that Christina Applegate, who just declared herself breast cancer-free, is turning to the diet as part of her recovery. Salon.com describes the meal plan as "following a healthy diet of fish, grains, beans and vegetables, and avoiding processed foods."
… The salad days. Maybe the warm weather is the reason for the 758% spike on the easy-to-prepare meals in a bowl. Searches on related links are also impressive. Everything from "salad recipes" and "salad dressing recipes" to the tasty "taco salad," "chicken salad," and "fruit salad" is garnering lookups.
…Just add carbs. Nothing beats a plate of noodles. Web foodies clearly agree — searches for "pasta" are up 1,563%. The perennial dinner stand-by "pizza" (+84%) is also a top choice, along with "lasagna" (+111%).
…Food fight. Better duck if you're looking for an after-dinner mini-treat. The trendy cupcake bakery Sprinkles Cupcakes (+704%) has slapped a lawsuit on its competitor, Famous Cupcakes, accusing the rival of swiping its trademarked "Modern Dot" cake design. Oh, just let them all eat cake.
Filed under: Diets, Food and Drink
Flat Belly Buzz
Dieters, step right up to meet the latest and the leanest. From Prevention magazine comes the "Flat Belly Diet," a new weight-loss regime emphasizing foods that "whittle away" fat in the stomach.
Never ones to play couch potatoes, the Prevention editors behind the diet have already logged miles on the promotions circuit. A web site, TV appearances from the diet's co-creators, and the publication of a "mini-mag" have all contributed to a growing chorus of belly buzz.
Searches for "flat belly diet" spiked 174% yesterday, boosting the weight-loss plan into our top 300 fastest moving searches. And though not all the buzz is positive—one diet blog called the program "a gimmick"—other sites have gone so far as to murmur the word "impressive."
Which opinion takes hold with the public remains to be seen, but in the meantime, Flat Belly can enjoy its rising profile online. The program cracked the top 10 most popular diets on Yahoo! over the past week. Dig in...
| 1. | Weight Watchers | 6. | Cabbage Soup Diet | |
| 2. | South Beach Diet | 7. | Mediterranean Diet | |
| 3. | Atkins Diet | 8. | 3-Day Diet | |
| 4. | Lemonade Diet | 9. | Detox Diet | |
| 5. | Low Carb Diet | 10. | Flat Belly Diet |
Filed under: Diets
Diet or Detox
With spring break going on now and halter-top weather around the corner, the perennial search to lose a few pounds usually experiences a fair-weather surge.
These days, however, the stakes seem to be higher. People (mostly women) aren't just looking for diets online anymore, but a deep—as in all-the-way-down-to-the-intestines deep—cleansing routine.
Hollywood, the wellspring of many quirky diets, has long embraced the fasting approach. The Steve Martin 1991 film "L.A. Story" had Sarah Jessica Parker's character extolling the virtues of colonic irrigation. Beyonce's gushing praise of Master Cleanse, AKA the lemonade diet, helped push its Search popularity up two years ago.
Now, the search for "detox diets" has become more widespread in the past 7 months, along with products like "evercleanse" (+40%), "dual action cleanse," (+10%), "colon cleanse" (-2%) and "almighty cleanse" (-5%). Some experts warn against putting the body off-balance, but the practice of limited fasting itself has received a modified okay, thanks to an American Heart Association study about the benefits of cutting back.
An inside-out scrubdown may be a more extreme approach, but at least the Search impulse could point to a positive trend of healthy eating. Aside from a few eccentricities like "lose weight with gum chewing gum" and concoctions like "cabbage soup diet," the fastest-moving "diet" searches have been ones that center around balanced eating, like the "mediterranean diet." Plans such as "weight watchers" routinely pull in the highest number of searches, and "exercise" beats out "diet pills."
Below are the top 20 diet and cleansing searches in the past 7 days... but resist the urge to purge.
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Wilting Willpower
We're not even finished with the first month of 2008, and people are looking to get around those inconvenient resolutions. All we can say is: What took you so long?
Could it be? After the flurry in December for "gym memberships," the interest has now officially waned. Health club lookups such as "curves gym," "gold's gym," "la fitness gym," and "bally's gym" have all declined in the past week.
And while it was popular just two weeks ago, we hear crickets chirping for "hallelujah diet" searches. Nowadays, the popular diet query, especially with ladies aged 45-64, is "the ultimate tea diet." That just makes us hungry.
Those folks on carb-free diets may be yearning for a slice of bread by now. We're noticing a spike in "good carbs" and "what are good carbs and bad carbs" searches in the past few days. Surely it's a good thing to identify the evil carbohydrates, so pass that plate of pasta, and we'll check it out later.
Even though they won't appear until February, those alluring "girl scout cookies" are calling to searchers from the order sheets. Dialups on the delish desserts shot up 493% this week in anticipation of their sugary goodness. Related lookups show that folks are looking to "buy girl scout cookies," and identify "types of girl scout cookies." Get in line. We ordered ours yesterday.
Filed under: Fitness, Diets, Girl Scouts
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ford 400 | Breakout! |
| 2 | Indonesia Ferry | Breakout! |
| 3 | Jordan Chandler | 3481% |
| 4 | Evan Chandler | 2322% |
| 5 | American Music Awards | 1841% |
| 6 | John F. Kennedy | 1529% |
| 7 | Turkey Stuffing Recipes | 1361% |
| 8 | Liam Hemsworth | 1172% |
| 9 | Lou Dobbs | 1142% |
| 10 | Hendrick Motorsports | 888% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Friday | +340 | 1290 |
| 2 | NFL | +489 | 670 |
| 3 | Jennifer Lopez | +451 | 515 |
| 4 | New Moon | -67 | 250 |
| 5 | American Music Awards | +236 | 249 |
| 6 | UFC | -36 | 239 |
| 7 | Miley Cyrus | +66 | 169 |
| 8 | Hulu | -11 | 154 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
For more detailed information, visit our FAQ.