Why I'm giving up chocolate in March
A charity campaign has inspired Simon Ward to ditch his chocolate fix for a month.
Charities are increasingly using abstinence as a way of raising money as well as a getting a message across. And the latest month-long event is DECHOX, where people pledge to not eat chocolate for the whole of March to raise money for the British Heart Foundation.
As a nation, we eat an awful lot of chocolate, in part because it's a very easy snack to pick up, as it’s sold in so many places, and often right by the till. And it’s also pretty much always discounted in some way in supermarkets.
I have to confess that I eat a fair bit, so of all the recent charity initiatives this was the one that caught my eye.
It was also compelling as I figure a month will give me enough time to refine (no pun intended) my diet to help me not fall back on bad ways when it’s over. And it’ll be interesting to see how much I miss it.
I don’t think the campaign around it is perfect: for instance, I don’t think advising people to substitute pudding for chocolate is a particularly healthy message for a heart charity to be putting out there. And most of the imagery on the website is of women looking guilty, when I suspect men grab a sneaky bar pretty regularly too.
But if it encourages people to take a look at what they’re eating, while raising some money for a good cause in the process, then ultimately it’s a good thing.
I’ll let you know how I got on at the end of the month.
Are you taking part in DECHOX? Have you given up anything for Lent? Let us know in the Comments box below.
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