Why dieting is a terrible New Year’s resolution

You’d hope that in the middle of a global pandemic, the New Year diet ads could maybe have a year off and we wouldn’t be subjected to the same onslaught about how you need to lose weight, get healthy, have a brand-new you and basically reinvent yourself into an entirely different person. But no. It’s the tail end of December, post Christmas, and the ‘New year, new you!’ ads have started. And of course now they’re not just on the TV – they’re on Facebook and Instagram and everywhere else you look online. There are companies that just last week were peddling the idea that this year, there was no ‘naughty list’ thanks to the year we’ve all had, and that you could therefore ‘treat’ yourself and eat and drink whatever you wanted. Until the 26th of December, that is, because after that, the diet ads came out in force.

This is a problem any year, not just this one. I am fat and I believe in radical fat acceptance. Some of us just are fat, in the same way that some of us just are thin. We are worthy of respect and healthcare in the same way that anyone else is, but we face significant barriers due to our weight to access those things and more. I would like to break down those barriers and one way to do this is through dismantling diet culture.

Diets fail. That is a fact. 95% of dieters regain the weight lost and more within a very small time frame. Weight Watchers and Slimming World are multi billion dollar organisations because of this fact; they depend on you failing and falling into loathing yourself in order to sell you the idea that their way is the best, and their way will make you thin, and then you can do and wear and eat all those things you’ve been meaning to do and wear and eat. Spoiler alert: you can do and wear and eat whatever you like. There’s no weight limit. I promise, because I’ve been trying to live that way for over ten years now. I don’t always manage to not fall into destructive patterns, of course, but I fake my way out of it until I make it again and honestly, that’s my best advice for life.

You don’t have to ‘earn’ food. There isn’t such a thing as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food, or ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ food. There is food. It isn’t a moral issue. I would recommend reading up on intuitive eating. I try to practice that and find that I eat a range of foods, all of which satisfy me in some way. That’s the point of food. It isn’t just about fuel, or we’d all just eat plain porridge non stop. You deserve to have food to satisfy you.

Winter is hardly the best time to start a new diet and exercise regime anyway. It’s cold, it’s dark, and your body naturally wants to hibernate a little bit and bulk up its reserves. Some of the best winter food does this, and I don’t see why winter is the best time to start eating nothing but salads while hating yourself because you don’t like salad. Wait until April and see the returning sun and decide then what sounds good. Fresh, amazing produce? Sign me right up! The middle of January? I want shepherd’s pie and hot chocolate.

2020 has been hard for everyone. Some of us have had it harder, sure, but we’ve all been thrust into something that we haven’t experienced before, and it’s been scary and full of change. In this, we cling to things that are comfortable. If that is the same food you’ve been eating all year because it’s quick, or it’s cheap, or it’s easily accessible from your house, so be it. You don’t have to start buying ingredients you’ve never bought or trying to be superman – at this point, survival is more than enough.

I saw a graphic on Facebook that mentioned some things to do instead of joining in with diet culture this January. There were many lovely suggestions, like write a journal, phone a friend, or write a letter to someone. I think those are far better resolutions than worrying about numbers on a scale.

Image credits: Anna Fox and StockSnap