Like countless Americans, I have been making the typical New Year’s Resolution for decades: this is the year I lose weight. Sometimes I do lose weight, but it inevitably always comes back. My cycle of constant dieting and weight rebound is a sign of my disordered eating and difficult relationship with food that I have had since about the age of eleven years old, maybe even earlier. My self-worth has been wrapped up in my size and physical attractiveness for so long that it has caused decades of self-deprivation and over exercise quickly followed by binging and weight rebounds.
In January, I feel more battered than ever by the messaging to “reclaim my health” when in reality diet culture and the diet industrial complex are doing my health a great disservice. And this weight cycling is doing far more damage to my body than remaining at the size my body was always supposed to be.
So this year, to take care of myself and promote the healthiest version of myself, I am saying death to diet culture in exchange for self-love, intuitive eating, and meaningful movement.
What Is Diet Culture?
What exactly is diet culture anyways? It’s a conglomeration of a lot of social influences and industries that serve to make people, especially women, feel inadequate in their bodies. “But what about the obesity epidemic? Diet culture is just trying to save lives.” In reality, we do not know that obesity is the main cause of all the adverse health outcomes we claim it is. We do know that weight cycling and weight bias do have real impacts on health.
Diet culture tries to sell us the idea that we are worthy when we meet a certain aesthetic, that if we achieve a certain size or shape, we will be appealing to others and successful in our various endeavors. The hard cold truth of it is that less than 20 percent of dieters keep off the weight they lose in the long term.
How many ads do you see on Facebook and Instagram showing off a diet app or a new fitness routine? How many emails have you received pushing an enticing meal plan kit or strategy? How many fashion ads on your feed feature women in a size 0 or 2 versus lets say a size 16?
Human bodies come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Your “set weight” is a genetic predisposition to sit in a range that keeps our body happy and healthy. Just like we do not have the ability to change our genetic markers for height, we cannot change this set weight regardless of what diet culture is trying to tell us. Diet culture makes people feel that they have a responsibility and moral obligation to make themselves smaller for the sake of “health” when you can actually be in great health at many different sizes. This messaging causes body image issues and adversely affects our overall mental health while ignoring what our body actually needs calorically.
Why I’m Letting It Go
For too long, I have allowed the messaging of diet culture to diminish my life. From the age of twelve to twenty-three, I suffered from bulimia nervosa. However, I was never diagnosed because if you exist in a larger body, very few medical professionals seem concerned that you have a problematic relationship with food. Year after year I have set myself up for failure by saying that my natural body was not good enough. And year after year I have failed to lose or keep off weight that naturally belongs to my body.
Eating a 900 calorie diet to try to fill a body that typically wants to sit around 250 lbs does not equate to health. And it certainly does not make anyone happy. My self-worth will no longer be dependent on comparisons to what our culture spins as normal. And I certainly will not be raising my daughter to feel that her value lies within her size, weight, or physical appearance.
A New Approach to Health and Wellness
Reframing “health”: This year I will be focusing on real aspects of my health, not how my physical appearance matches up to a cultural beauty standard. I will focus on increasing my strength, my energy, and my joy. To this end, I will be trying to heal from my years of disordered eating and instead focus on listening to what my body needs and feeding it as required.
Mental wellness: I resolve to be compassionate with myself and break the rhythm of harmful internal voices that have plagued me for so long. I will also set and maintain boundaries with those around me and via social media to avoid diet talk and other harmful subjects.
Physical wellness: I will focus on movement that feels good for my body. This includes preparing for a 20 mile hike that I am really excited to participate in come September! I will also do weight bearing exercise because I want to protect my bones. Finally, I will feed my body what it needs without guilt or fear!
How to Resist Diet Culture in Daily Life
Diet culture is highly evasive in our everyday lives, so it requires a sound strategy to avoid these signals. When we encounter friends, family, or colleagues who are themselves dieting or pitching their latest diet secret, I believe it is best to respond in a non-confrontational manner. You can simply change the subject, or you can interject “I don’t discuss dieting” or “I don’t discuss my body” before moving on to something else. It is important to create a supportive community that reflects your anti-diet values. To do so, reach out to other friends and family who may be sick of making themselves sick to be smaller. Or there are great groups on social media or blogs to follow about intuitive eating practices.
Be cognizant of what media you are feeding yourself. Does that lifestyle blogger talk too much about lowering her caloric intake? Remove her channels from your preferred platform. Does that fitness guru on Insta not include bodies that encompass different sizes? Find someone who does and put them on your feed. When you receive advertisements for weight loss apps and drugs, hide, unfollow, and unsubscribe as much as possible. Stop the flood of messaging that you are not good enough. You are perfect in any body!
Setting Positive, Non-Diet Resolutions
No one has to set a New Year’s resolution for the year. There is no moral requirement that we make a change in our lives every January. However, it might be helpful to move past diet culture if we embrace some other things that focus on growth, joy, and self-care. Perhaps you make a resolution to learn a new hobby or expand your current practice of a hobby. Maybe there is something you want to do more of like travel or spend time outdoors. And of course we can start a new practice such as journaling or practicing gratitude. All of these different resolutions can help center you, lead to improved mental wellness, and negate diet culture’s negative impact on ourselves.
Know Your Why
Whenever we attempt to make a big change in our lives, it is helpful to identify the things that can help motivate us to adhere to new practices and habits. Why are we putting ourselves through this? It can be very personal, like “I want to feel good about myself”. For me, I have a more external motivation: my daughter. I want to model the kind of relationship with my size and with food that I want for her. I want to show her what it means to be happy in our own body and to have a confident, sustainable relationship with food.
Conclusion
2025 is my year. It’s the year I embrace myself and love myself and teach my daughter to love herself. I hope that this fundamental change will drive a new lifestyle for me. One that focuses on self-love, intuitive eating, and meaningful movement.
Other than saying “death to diet culture”, I am also making the resolution to complete the Mammoth March hike in September. I would love to hear from my readers who also have non-diet resolutions for the New Year!
My wish for you in the new year is that you are able to find the self-love we all so deeply deserve. I hope you have a healthier relationship with food than ever before and embrace your body at whatever size it may be. May your year be full of joy and love! Happy 2025!
The Wandering Librarian 
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