Talk about added motivation for the millions of Americans who made a weight-loss resolution to start this new year — or a kick in the pants for the millions of Americans who didn’t but really needed to.

The January issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology contains a study conducted by researchers at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom that found having a high body mass index (BMI) adversely affects health to a higher degree than previous studies indicated. In fact, the researchers conclude by stating high BMIs cause “elevated mortality rates.”

The degree of such elevation in the United States came to light two weeks later.

According to analysis performed by University of Pennsylvania and the Boston University School of Public Health researchers and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Americans who are 40 years old and overweight forfeit nearly a full year of life. While a loss of nine-tenths of a year may not seem like much, it is a factor under your control — and other controllable factors have been trending upwards.

For instance, fewer American adults are smoking cigarettes since such statistics have been tabulated. And many Americans must be eating right and exercising enough, because deaths from heart disease and cancer are down.

All of which should provide you with the impetus to eat better, what last week’s article urged you to do. In that article, I suggested you “take a page out of my book” and replace sugary snacks with a faux-fudge dry-cereal topping that’s loaded with the superfood cocoa but lacking added sugar.

Before I share any more of my “pages,” consider one from Tabitha James’s book. Tabitha James was featured in the January/February issue of Health magazine because she has lost 87 pounds and 3 dress sizes since beginning to eat better in 2013.

In Anthea Levi’s article about her, titled “Bye-Bye, Baby Weight,” James says, “I try to eat the same meals almost every day: green smoothies and veggie burrito bowls. This way, I’m never scrambling to come up with something to eat — or resorting to fast food.”

Levi dubbed this “repeat your eats,” a strategy that previously I’ve suggested a number of times that’s really a rather natural thing to do. In fact, a survey conducted in Great Britain found 60 percent questioned rotate a core group of meals weekly, with one in four even eating the same meals on the same night of the week.

While many Britons probably do this purely for expediency, care little about nutritional value or calorie content, and therefore their health suffers because of the repetition, James’s story proves it can do the opposite — provided the foods in your rotation are healthy ones.

Which brings us back to my extreme use of cocoa. Initially, it felt sinful to use as much as 15 tablespoons of the stuff in a single day in the concoctions I make — until I uncovered an analysis of 21 studies done by Harvard University researchers in 2011.

The analysis showed that not only did the use of cocoa decrease “bad,” LDL cholesterol and increase “good” HDL cholesterol levels, but it also improved the condition of blood vessels while decreasing blood pressure. Moreover, its use tended to reduce insulin resistance, a harbinger of type 2 diabetes.

And additional health benefits accrue in a seemingly secondary but especially important way. The faux-fudge cereal topping explained in the last column satisfies my craving for chocolate, yet contains no more than 15 calories per tablespoon, so I don’t take in too many calories.

If “repeat your eats” is an eating strategy that appeals to you, get a book like “100 Best Health Foods” (Parragon, 2105), “SuperFoods Rx” (HarperCollins, 2003), or “SuperFoods: HealthStyle (HarperCollins, 2006) or engage in some internet research. Create a list of 15 to 20 foods that are really good for you yet taste really good to you.

And then start to experiment.

You’d be surprised at the odd and enjoyable discoveries you’ll make. One of my favorites actually started out as a mistake.

I eat about a pound of broccoli with supper three times a week. For years, I steamed the stuff — and for far longer than most people would, killing the crunch and creating close to a mush.

But one night when I needed to save time, I microwaved the broccoli. In my haste, I forgot to add water to the Tupperware container.

Luckily, I smelled the burn before things got too bad. Parts of the broccoli, however, turned brown. Oddly enough, that was the part I liked best.

Now I turn a bit of my broccoli brown on purpose by microwaving about half a pound at a time with 1 tablespoon of water for 8 minutes, after cutting the stem into thin slices and separating the florets. If I hit it right and let it cool, the brown parts have a smoky sweetness that really appeals to me.