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Rethinking Resolutions: Why Your New Year’s Resolution Shouldn’t Be About Weight Loss
Written by Dr. Paulina Syracuse, Post Doctoral Fellow
As the holiday season wraps up, it’s time to welcome the New Year! Beyond the cheesy hats and noisy party favors, there’s one thing you know comes with the New Year: resolutions! And what’s one of the most popular resolutions year after year? If you guessed something related to losing weight or dieting, you’re exactly right. In fact, data from the Pew Research Center found that 79% out of more than 5,000 people surveyed after the new year in 2024 said that their New Year resolution had to do with health, exercise, and diet. This time of year is often rife with people sharing their plans to reach a “goal weight” or start eating “good”/stop eating “bad.” It’s certainly true that aiming to move your body in a way that works for you, eat a diverse, mindful diet, and do things to support your health are valuable goals. However, the problem arises when this type of New Year resolution is influenced by diet culture and societal standards, especially for those who struggle with an eating disorder.
One of the major reasons these types of resolutions are problematic is the messaging they perpetuate: that your worth is predicated on what you eat, how much you eat, and what your body looks like. They reinforce the incorrect idea that there are “good” and “bad” foods and if you eat “good,” then you are “good,” but if you eat “bad,” then you are “bad.” When in fact, food has no moral value and your intake does not impact who you are or what you are worth. That doesn’t mean you should live on sugar cookies and chocolate oranges all year long. A balanced, flexible diet that includes mindfulness, variety, and enjoyment is the ultimate goal. Unfortunately, many New Year’s resolutions focus on cutting out entire food groups or specific items, creating a restrictive mindset. This often backfires. After a period of eating “good,” you may find yourself overeating, binge-eating, or feeling guilty for “breaking the rules.” This “failure” then often leads to a zealous commitment to restart strict dieting that is motivated by self-criticism, “I can’t believe I ate all those cookies! What is wrong with me? I have to be better.” Sometimes this criticism or judgment may even come from others. Either way, the feelings of guilt, shame, frustration, disappointment, and embarrassment perpetuate the dieting cycle.
These patterns don’t just harm your relationship with food, they harm your relationship with yourself. When dieting “failures” are internalized as personal flaws, they perpetuate a cycle of self-criticism and low self-esteem. Over time, this erodes your sense of self-worth and leads to feelings of hopelessness or frustration. Additionally, the focus on dieting often overshadows other meaningful aspects of life, creating a preoccupation with weight and food that leaves little room for joy, creativity, or connection. I’ve heard so many clients share how dieting and the eating disorder voice pull them away from the things that matter to them. The cycle becomes about more than just food; it’s about how you view yourself and engage with the world.
When you are stuck in this cycle, odds are, you view this cycle of “failure” as laziness or a lack of willpower. You may focus on this “laziness” as the problem that must be fixed and then wonder why it is so difficult to do so. “What’s wrong with me that I can’t just stop? I’m so lazy/disgusting/unmotivated/a failure.” However, research and clinical practice reveal that dieting “failures” are not due to laziness or lack of restraint. Instead, they come from your body’s and brain’s basic, hard-wired need for energy. When you don’t eat enough during the day, particularly with rigid dieting rules, your brain quite literally shifts into survival mode. Obsessive thoughts about food take over as a biological strategy to try to get you to eat enough to meet your body’s basic, essential needs.
Paradoxically, the more you try to control or restrict food, the more frequently you think about it (How’s that for irony?). Following strict dietary rules often leads to preoccupation with food—planning meals, calculating portions, or even fantasizing about forbidden foods. This heightened focus is a direct result of the very restrictions you’re imposing. Essentially, trying to maintain a restrictive diet sets you up for failure from the start.
The other problem with following a restrictive diet is that it reinforces societal norms that skinny is “better.” It perpetuates fatphobia (prejudice or discrimination against individuals based on their body size that are rooted in societal ideals that equate thinness with health, beauty, and worth) and the idea that your worth is tied to the shape and size of your body. These ideas ignore the fact that thinness is not a universal marker of health OR happiness and that bodies naturally come in a wide range of shapes and sizes. This is why the idea of a “goal” weight, for example, is often not achievable or sustainable. It disregards the critical role of genetics in determining metabolism, hunger and fullness signals, fat storage, and energy use in the body. And, even for those who do reach a “goal weight,” your body’s natural response is to try to return to its baseline weight set point—or, as I like to say to my patients, where your body and weight are supposed to be! This constant cycle of dieting and weight regain not only damages physical health but also reinforces the false and harmful narrative that thinness equals success, health, or worth.
So, rather than jump on the bandwagon of making a diet/weight loss goal resolution this year, try to make one that is not food- or body-related. Maybe you restart a hobby you haven’t done in awhile. Maybe you set a schedule to not fall behind in laundry. Maybe you repair a friendship. Maybe you decide to do less next year or not make a resolution at all! The options are endless and ultimately lead you to living a full, values-based life that is unrelated to your body and actually breaks the dieting cycle. If you’re finding it difficult to break free from the dieting cycle or disconnect your self-worth from your body, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re here to help.
