With social media feeds flooding every summer with “get beach body ready” content, previous research shows around 70% of people report heightened body dissatisfaction in summer, driven by social media comparisons and the sense that their body is on public display.
With this in mind, weight loss specialists Tonic have analysed year-on-year changes in UK search activity for “beach body” and 1,316 related keywords and found a striking and counterintuitive pattern: it is Britain’s seaside cities that are least interested in beach bodies, while inland cities are driving the biggest increases.
Britain’s coastal cities are stepping back from beach body culture
The findings compared average monthly searches across UK cities between June 2024–May 2025 and June 2025–May 2026. Every coastal city in the dataset recorded a fall in beach body search interest over the past year.
| Rank | Coastal City | Region | % Change Year on Year |
| 1 | Newport | Wales | -56.70% |
| 2 | Blackpool | England | -46.70% |
| 3 | Derry | Northern Ireland | -46.30% |
| 4 | Brighton | England | -37.00% |
| 5 | Poole | England | -36.80% |
| 6 | Swansea | Wales | -25.00% |
| 7 | Hove | England | -28.00% |
| 8 | Bournemouth | England | -16.90% |
| 9 | Chichester | England | -16.10% |
| 10 | Bangor | Wales | -10.50% |
| 11 | Southend-on-Sea | England | -10.70% |
| 12 | Inverness | Scotland | -2.60% |
Blackpool has seen the steepest fall of any English coastal city, with beach body searches down 46.7% year on year. The beach consistently ranks as a top seaside destination with the highest monthly Google searches of any coastal location exceeding attracting around 178,000 monthly Google searches, suggesting that people are heading there in significant numbers, but feeling less pressure to look a certain way when they do.
Dubbed “London-by-the-sea”, Brighton dropped 37% year on year. Home to a four-mile promenade and one of the UK’s most vibrant cultural scenes, Brighton attracts around 64,000 monthly searches for its beach alone and yet beach body demand is falling.
Bournemouth, which draws around 86,000 monthly beach searches, recorded a 16.9% fall despite being one of England’s most popular sandy beach destinations. Poole, with 12,000 monthly beach searches, fell 36.8%, while Hove attracting around 8,000 monthly searches recorded a 28% decline.
Newport in Wales recorded the steepest drop of any coastal city in the entire dataset, with searches for beach body content down 56.7% compared with the previous year despite Newport beach attracting around 13,000 monthly searches of its own.
Meanwhile, inland cities are still searching
The picture is almost entirely reversed when you look at cities further from the coast. Derby posted an 11.5% rise in beach body searches, West Bromwich was up 17.6% and Telford rose 14%.
In Wales, the two cities with the biggest increases Carmarthen (+25%) and Ammanford (+18.2%) are both inland.
The data suggests that it is not the cities closest to the beach that are most preoccupied with getting a beach body it is those furthest away.
Jordan Chadwick, Managing Director at Tonic, sees a clear pattern:
“There is something genuinely interesting in the fact that the places where you would most expect to find beach body pressure our seaside resorts, our coastal cities are the ones where interest is falling fastest.
“It suggests that people who live close to the coast may have a more relaxed, year round relationship with their bodies and the beach, while those further away are still caught up in the pressure to transform themselves before a summer holiday.“
Is coastal Britain leading a wider attitude shift?
The coastal data sits within a broader national picture of declining beach body interest, and Jordan believes the falling figures reflect a genuine and positive shift in how people are approaching their weight and body image
” What this data reflects, in our view, is a broader shift in how people are thinking about their weight and their bodies.
“One of the most encouraging changes we are seeing is that people who have committed to a long-term, structured approach to their health involving proper nutrition, movement, psychological support and ongoing clinical aftercare – often feel more positive about their bodies and more able to sustain lifestyle changes over the long term.
“When someone has a realistic plan, ongoing clinical support and starts to see their health improving, the focus tends to shift away from chasing a short-term ‘beach body’ and towards feeling well in their day-to-day life.
“The goalposts shift. It stops being about how you look in August and starts being about how you feel day to day”
Leave a Reply