While the Northern Hemisphere people get to space these annoying phenomena out, down here we get hit by a triple-whammy of “new year, new you” marketing messaging thrown at us at the same time as the awfulness that is the concept of the “summer body” - a made-up idiocy that comes around once a year and is designed solely to make you feel bad about yourself - sprinkled with a bit of that other stupid annual tradition of calling on you to “lose your holiday weight”.
To make matters worse, this is all thrown at us when we’re also at our most tired, desperate for a break at the end of yet another long year, with limited capacity for critical thinking. Frankly, it’s nothing short of a miracle that any of us makes it to January 1st with any self-esteem left.
I don’t want to lose my Christmas weight. Do you know how many boxes of scorched almonds I bought (to, ahem, give to “other people”) and ended up eating myself? That’s a lot of money to now just try to go sweat it all out. And I’ve already got a “summer body”, insofar as having a body that is currently in summer. I also definitely do not want a new me in the new year. Current me is fine.
Targeted advertising on social media seems to get particularly feral at this time of the year. If you haven’t yet, I suggest you filter the ads you are served on Instagram and block out any that relate to weight loss or dieting. To do so, you go to your settings, click on “ads”, then on “ad topics” and use the search bar to find things like “weight loss” then select “show less ads about this topic” (a phrase that is grammatically annoying but we’re willing to overlook it).
The thing about most New Year resolutions and most discourse around the premise of “new year, new you” is that it implies the current you needs to improve, that you need to somehow make yourself better, which we all know is completely ridiculous because - and this is a fact, printed on a newspaper - you are awesome. And it’s even more ridiculous considering, well, everything that’s been going on.
It wasn’t long ago we weren’t even leaving our homes for fear of catching or unknowingly transmitting a deadly disease. Now, with a pandemic still going on, and an impending climate catastrophe, among many other disasters (looking right at you, latest season of Emily in Paris), it’s downright ridiculous that anyone would expect us to worry about calories.
Are we seriously supposed to just act like we’re not all collectively living through one of the most traumatic periods in the history of the world and just whip out our little journals to write our little lists of all the ways we will become better people in 2023? How we’re going to “eat clean” (whatever the hell that is), exercise every day (lol), learn some obscure new skill we’re not even that into, and read a heap more books instead of watching Love Island (okay, this last one is actually quite a good idea, might write it down)?
You know what? No. How about we just don’t? How about we give ourselves a break? It’s 2023 and we’ve got better things to do than worry about our weight or our “beach bodies”. We have been keeping ourselves alive for the past three years through a pandemic that has killed more than 6.6 million people. A body that survives what your body has survived deserves a bit more respect.
As these ads pop up everywhere and try to make us feel bad about ourselves, do not feel tricked into thinking any of the people or companies behind it are doing it for your “health”. By all means, lose weight if you want to, but don’t lose weight because a company’s marketing department tells you to.
I really wish this didn’t need to be said anymore but, judging by my experience on social media over the last few days, it still very much does: not losing any weight in 2023 is a perfectly legitimate option. And it’s not just weight loss either. You also don’t have to become a morning person (we both know that’s never going to happen) or learn a new language on Duolingo or start going to bed earlier.
For the first time since I can remember, I am waking up in 2023 without any New Year resolutions, big or small. I’ve had enough of trying to reinvent myself on an annual basis, only to give it all up and feel like a failure three weeks into the year. This January 1st might as well be December 32nd because I’ll be doing the same old thing, which has been serving me just fine. Despite what the fitness and wellness industries would like us all to believe, growth happens in incremental teeny tiny steps, not grandiose prosecco-soaked New Year decisions.
Look at you! You’re fine. I mean, I don’t know you so I’m just guessing. But if you’ve read this far, chances are you are pretty great. This new year definitely doesn’t need a new you. It just needs you.
