Smoking, drinking, eating – survey reveals Czechia's hardest habits to give up

With 2023 around the corner, people around the Czech Republic will be thinking of starting the new year with a clean slate; making resolutions and thinking of which bad habits to kick. Recent analysis gives insight into which habits Czechs currently find most challenging to give up.

A Europe-wide study by retailer ICE Headshop analyzed the frequency of search terms for how to drop a certain habit, such as smoking, drinking, or eating. 

It was found that Czechs most often want to give up smoking, with a total of over 18,000 online internet searches per year on advice related to stopping the habit. Although on a declining trend, smoking is relatively popular in Czechia, with analysis from the State Institute of Health finding that almost one in four adults in the country smoke (higher than the EU average of 18 percent).

In second place comes alcohol – almost 10,000 online searches are made annually on finding information about quitting drinking. World Health Organization data shows that Czechia in 2019 had the third-highest alcohol consumption per capita in the world. With one-fifth of adults in Czechia drinking at least “every other day” and over one million drinking “excessively,” it may come as no surprise that searches related to stopping alcohol consumption are so frequent. 

Sugar and eating meat are the next most commonly searched habits that people want to give up. The state of people’s diet in Czechia is presently poor: as reported Seznam Zprávy, six in 10 Czechs are overweight, and about 20 percent of the country is obese. This is one of the worst rates in the whole of Europe, with Deník N writing that Czechia is presently facing an “epidemic of obesity.”

Finally, the fifth-most commonly searched habit that Czechs wish to quit is drinking coffee. Over half of adults drink at least two coffees daily according to Globe24.cz, and the average person consumes about 2.5 kilograms of the drink every year. 

One theme that connects all these habits is health. A recent survey of Czechs’ planned New Year’s Resolutions for 2023 reported by ČTK shows that improving “health and wellbeing” was the most frequently cited resolution, with half of respondents pledging to focus more on their health.

Better finances, fitness, and personal development – aspects that are all aided by kicking unhealthy habits – were the next most frequently cited new year’s resolutions that Czechs will attempt in 2023 in a bid to shrug off unhealthy habits of the past year.