How to avoid diet culture in the new year

Every year between Christmas and New Year’s Day, diet culture loves to rear its sneaky head – except that this is the one time of year it’s NOT subtle or sneaky, and permeates our world much more obviously.

You already have emails urging you to “make up” for what you ate in December and a fitness expert in your Instagram feed encouraging you to commit to a new exercise regimen or meal plan (a/k/a diet).

While the promise of a new year is enticing to make a fresh start or “improve” yourself, it’s also the most important time to stay vigilant about the influences you allow in your life.

To be successful, use these 6 ways to avoid diet culture in the new year.

Why to push diet culture away

Many feminist caregivers understand the importance of positive body image and why our influence as parents, teachers, and coaches is so critical for children and teens.

You want the children in your life to know that their body is wonderful the way it is. You also want them to know that there are a million things more important than how they look – their wit, compassion and kindness, to name a few. But in an image-obsessed culture, this is an uphill battle we must climb daily.

Even if you’ve been on a body positive journey for a while – perhaps you’ve ditched the scale and stopped counting calories, or you started buying clothes that fit your body right now – it’s easy to fall prey to promises of a “better you” (a/k/a a smaller, more healthy, more organized, more fashionable, more youthful, put-together you.)

If you’re feeling that pressure right now, you’re not alone.

To help you continue on your body positive journey, use these six tips to keep the focus off of your appearance, and fight diet culture like a superhero!

1. Know that you don’t have to atone

Everyone wants you to feel guilty at the end of the year. Gyms, food delivery services, juice companies – they all want you to feel bad for enjoying the holidays. How else will they make money from you? But listen… instead of guilt about imbibing more wine, pie, and bread than usual, start to expect it as part of an annual cycle.

Repeat after me: it’s okay to enjoy myself during the holidays. It’s okay to celebrate with food. I do not have to atone for anything enjoyable or delicious.

2. Know you are worthy just the way you are

“But,” you protest, “if I don’t atone for my December indulgences, won’t I just keep getting bigger and bigger?” The short answer is that it doesn’t matter. YOU are more important than what you look like.

The longer answer is that our bodies go through lots of cycles: monthly, yearly, and generationally. Our bodies were never meant to be static, and we must expect changes here and there. If you begin to tune out the noise and re-learn how to listen to your intuition, you’ll settle at a place that is right and comfortable for you.

Related: 10 ways to start intuitive eating with kids

Wherever you land is okay. Because you are worthy just the way you are. You have a unique mix of talents and traits that no one else has.

Say it out loud: “I am worthy just the way I am.”

3. Interrogate your reasons for a “better you”

Okay, I’ll stop making you talk out loud. But listen up.

Often times, our New Year’s resolutions are diet-driven goals masquerading as health goals. You might say, “I want to do a detox to feel better” or “I’m going to run a 10K to be more healthy.”

Get brutally honest with yourself. Is the juice cleanse truly going to make your body operate better than it does now? Or is it about being smaller and feeling emptier? Is the 10K to achieve the runner’s high for better energy all day, or do you envision the sweat just melting parts of your body away?

Maybe it’s a mixture of motivations. And that’s okay, but start to be honest with yourself about those true reasons.

4. Questions; not resolutions

If your resolutions often focus on appearance, ditch them altogether. Goals can be okay, but sometimes you create goals you feel you SHOULD achieve, rather than those you WANT to achieve. So instead of resolutions, ask yourself these questions, and write down the answers:

• What do I want to learn this year?
• How do I want to feel this year?
• What’s something new I want to experience?
• The personal development I am most proud of from last year is…
• Last year I felt really good when…
• How do I want to spend time with family and friends?

And if an entire year seems too big to grasp, keep it more manageable and think about a month or two at a time.

5. Redesign your feed.

Step 1: Last year at this time, we discussed how to declutter your feed. Take these steps to unfollow and unsubscribe from anything that makes you feel objectified or unworthy.

Step 2: You can do this in real life, too! If your co-workers constantly chat about Keto, unsubscribe from the conversation. If it hurts to even speak, just leave the area wordlessly. But if you’re able to go a bit further, say, “I’ve learned that talking about food and diets makes me feel crappy, so I prefer to chat about something else. Did you hear about the snowstorm coming?”

Step 3: Add new voices to your feed, especially those featuring fat positivity and bodies that are most marginalized. Do you listen to enough black women? People with disabilities? Fat activists? Or is your feed filled with thin, wealthy white women? We have a growing amount of control over our media intake – use it wisely, and visit my Instagram for a post devoted to these recommendations.

6. Use micro-activism  

If you see diet culture pop up in weird places (such as a school or business marketing), notice it and name it. Comment on it. Ask questions.

Someone in the entrepreneur coaching space recently sent an email using belly fat as the hook. This did not mesh with my expectations for articles about mindfulness and time management, so I replied and asked if diet culture would be part of their messaging going forward because it was not something I’m interested in. I received a kind, genuine response, and now they have more information about what their audience wants – and doesn’t want.

This tip is important because body image shouldn’t be a solo project. It’s not a fault we have as individuals – it’s a massive, systemic problem.

Use this micro-activism in all areas of your life (if you are at a place in your journey where it feels safe) so that we can banish the idea that dieting and body-hatred are normal parts of everyday life.

It CAN work… just look at the response to the poorly executed Peloton ad! (The company stood by the ad, but their stock price dropped.)

You are worthy.

Try these 6 tips to avoid being swept up in the powerful diet culture that seems inescapable. You are worthy. You are valuable and lovable, just the way you are.

Tomorrow doesn’t have to be a “new you.” The current you is oh-so-wonderful already.

If you are a caregiver, be sure to grab our free guide to raising children with healthy body image.