Some of you may be aware that this week marks the beginning of Lent, the festival that many Christians celebrate — or suffer through — in the run-up to Easter. It commemorates the 40 days and nights Jesus spent fasting and being tempted by the devil in the desert. Having been brought up by a devout Irish Catholic father, and sent to a convent school, I feel guilty if I do not observe the Lenten period by at least trying to give up some kind of earthly pleasure or vice, as many Christians are encouraged to do alongside the two other pillars of Lent: prayer and almsgiving. And I’m sure some of you will also be giving things up — chocolate, alcohol or Twitter perhaps — even if you have no Christian background or faith, for reasons of self-discipline, health or just sanity.

But we are a rapidly dwindling group. Polling carried out by YouGov this week and shared with the FT suggests that only one in 20 Brits will be giving up anything for Lent this year (though separate polling suggests eight in 10 happily embraced pancake day on Shrove Tuesday this week before the abstinence started). This figure is down from one in 10 the last time the company ran the poll, in 2012. Even in God-fearing America, polling suggests that only about one in six people — and less than half of US Catholics — observes Lent, despite seven out of 10 Americans celebrating Easter itself (often with the consumption of a whole lot of chocolate).

A somewhat larger proportion of people form New Year’s resolutions — about one in five — but these are usually focused on actively doing things, such as “exercising more” or “eating healthier”, whereas in Lent, the explicit focus is on refraining from doing things.