New year's resolutions can focus too much on losing weight — and losing joy. That's a bad example for our kids

The first few weeks of January typically consist of people either moaning about their holiday weight gain or making resolutions to hit the gym and drop those pounds.

As a result, TikTok and Instagram are filled with images of people praising the latest smoothie or pilates routines to help you along. 

Why do we fall for this fitness trap? Because it's not about fitness — it's about fitting into a very idealized and narrow view of what is attractive.

Clinical counsellor Sharon Zack, who helps many clients with eating disorders and eating behaviours, says we equate our body size to health and being accepted, when it is anything but that. 

"We have a very distorted and narrowed vision of what health is," says Zack. "There is no health without mental health ... if we don't start putting that into the greater picture of what health is, than we'll be continuing to portray this idea that health is how much we weigh."

We tend to hide how much we might enjoy food because it can be seen as gluttony or letting oneself go. There can be shame associated with eating and any weight gain — and so, similar to sex, it's become taboo, Zack says.

"It's hard to find a language that celebrates our enjoyment from food, from textures, from bodily sensations," she says. "We don't have models that we've learnt from to do that. We don't make room for ourselves and the wholeness of how we are."

Industry makes millions from our desire to be desirable

It's not to say there aren't benefits to being healthy and being positive role models for our children. Salad and the occasional spin class aren't terrible for kids to see, but it depends what the intentions behind them are. 

Much of the fitness industry makes millions off people's desire to be seen as attractive, with little thought at times to true health and wellness. 

Nutrition and fitness coach Lisa Duncan says we need to talk to our kids about diet culture and the very real dangers of falling for what society says we should do and consume.

"Any food choice that comes from rules or moral judgment is considered disordered eating." says Duncan. " And that's what all of these diets are doing to people."

Any discussion about food and fitness with kids need to be free of shame or judgment. There are no good or bad foods.  An apple is an apple. Chocolate is chocolate. Both are welcome and part of a balanced life. So is moving your body and vegging on the couch. 

'What is the perfect body?'

While there has been more focus in recent times on body positivity and acceptance, that still just focuses on appearance.

We need to focus on our true health, listening to our bodies and helping our children understand that by giving up or restricting foods, or moving solely to burn calories or build muscles, we are giving up a world of pleasure that can't be measured by what the world sees when it looks at us. 

As Zack points out, with a strict diet or exercise regimen we stand to lose not just pounds but also "the parts that we lose of ourselves and who we could be if weren't occupied with that, or obsessed with that."  

"We are narrowing ourselves down."

Duncan agrees that we need to accept our bodies for whatever shape and form they want to take, and question why we strive for some arbitrary "ideal."

"What is perfection? What is the perfect body?" she wonders. "That might be different from one person to another. Why are you trying so hard to achieve somebody else's body? Their genetics are totally different. Their culture is totally different. Comparison is the thief of joy." 

We are truly lucky to live in such a time of global connection. But our ideals of beauty and happiness have not kept up with the technology.

We need to stop trying to squeeze ourselves into the same narrow views. There is so much joy to be had if we truly inhabit our bodies, and learn to accept them as they are. And that goes not just for weight, but for colour, culture and gender as well.