What we can leave in 2024

The New Year's resolutions are coming up and everyone has different ideas on what they want to work on and change for 2025. Well, I have some ideas on what we can leave behind in 2024.

We are coming up on the infamous New Year’s Resolutions. My dad would always ask me every year if I bothered to make any resolutions. I would laugh and say no because that would mean that I would have to keep them. Haha. It was sort of an inside joke between us because he would then say he didn’t make any either for the same reason, so the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, I guess.

I don’t mind having and discussing goals because we all have them in some way or another, or even doing an aesthetic vision board in order to lay out some new year's desires. What I guess I am trying to say is that I am not against change because I think that, as humans, we should be changing. I think if we remain the same people with the same thoughts throughout our lives, that’s a problem. There should be room for growth and learning.

With that being said, I have my personal hopes and goals, but I also have some for society. And, of course, being the time that we are in with the new year of 2025 approaching, people are discussing resolutions. Unfortunately, many of these resolutions are shrinking and contorting related in many ways than one. Not to mention that we have a very narrow view of health and wellness and what it truly entails.

Current mood. I also have been seeing this circulating social media but the artist is never mentioned so if someone knows, please give a shoutout.

So here is a running list (not complete because I could go on and on) of things that I hope we can leave behind in 2024. Please and thank you.

Not accepting body diversity

We cannot all look the same. We have different genetic makeups, so not everyone will have these advertised physical results, no matter how many squats they do or Pilates classes they take. So, what happens if you see that you don’t look like that influencer or celebrity or coworker? Even if you feel better with the exercise you do, do you think that you failed because you aren’t transforming physically? We compare ourselves to people we see even though we aren’t aware of the full picture. Genetics are, of course, at play, but there might also be disordered eating and other habits we can’t see when looking at a person.

Genetics is what makes our bodies come in all different shades, colors, and lengths, but for some reason, we tend to think we should all be one size, some version of thin. You know how you go to a paint store to select a color and you know you want an orange but there are multiple colors of orange with varying degrees of difference? There are colors like orange rust, russet orange, and sun orange. They are all a bit different, but they are all still shades of orange. Plus, many people assume if it isn’t genetics, then “working hard” and eating a certain way can make us all thin. But the truth is there are multiple factors that influence our weight. Family history, family habits, culture, racial background, age, sex, medications, mental health, and the environment where we live, work, and worship all play a role. You know, the social determinants of health.

All the different versions of orange according to Pantone. And there are even more.

I will also add in that we aren’t supposed to look the same throughout our lifetime. That’s sort of how bodies work. They are living and breathing forms that come with life experiences and aging, no matter what influencer is trying to convince you otherwise. We often see celebrities being praised for looking the same or maintaining their physique with age. We see headline after headline of “How does she do it?” “What’s her secret?” “She just turned 40 but looks 25! Her secrets shared.” And yes, I purpsefully put “she” because we live in a fatphobic, ageist, classist, ableist, racist, elitist, and misogynistic society which allows men to more often than not, age “gracefully.”

I know that celebrities often go above and beyond for their bodies due to industry and society pressure, but if we need to exercise multiple times a day to maintain a certain aesthetic, that’s not a natural aesthetic. I empathize with the difficulties of being in the spotlight when you’re in the public eye, but that doesn’t make someone an expert on health. It also doesn’t mean that we are doing something wrong if we notice our own bodies change. Also, bodies are not business cards. Business cards give us the details of a person whereas bodies (what someone looks like on the outside) do not.

All of the fad diets

This leads into the second plea to drop the fad diets. Let’s leave this wayyyyy behind. They don’t work and we all know that they don’t work, so why do we insist on partaking in them. A poll in the United Kingdom of two thousand people found that the average person will try 126 fad diets over the course of their lifetime, and that they will embark on at least two fad diets a year, which typically last just six days each. Why does this happen? Because diets are not sustainable. Studies have consistently shown that most people regain the weight they have lost and more through dieting. If we look at the numbers, 80 to 95 percent of dieters gain back the weight that they’ve lost mostly within a year.

The endless hamster wheel of dieting

We get so wrapped up in the promises of diet culture and the quick-fix mentality, that we often ignore the effects and the toll dieting has on us. Think about those advertisements for medications that list all the ways taking this simple pill will cure everything, but then at the end, very quickly divulge the never-ending list of risks that may make someone think twice about taking it. This is analogous to when someone starts a diet and also ignores the problems that come with it. How have we normalized writing down every morsel of food that we put in our mouths? How have we normalized implying that one food or food group is the root cause of our problems? How have we normalized skipping social events and feeling isolation from fear of food? It’s quite startling the more you think about it.

Here’s what I do suggest -