Please don't go on a diet this January...
- Madi (RNutr)
- Jan 8
- 5 min read
January rolls around and suddenly the world seems to agree on one thing: that our bodies need fixing. Diet ads ramp up, gyms go into overdrive, and the cultural pressure to “start fresh” with a new body is everywhere. But before you get swept up in the New Year/New You chaos, I want to gently suggest something radical: Please don’t go on a diet this January (or this year).
Not because you lack willpower (you don’t). Not because you’re doing anything wrong (you aren’t). But because the entire premise that shrinking your body will make you happier or healthier simply doesn’t hold up - scientifically, psychologically, or emotionally. Crafty Pickle co-founders Arthur and I have lived experience of the obsession with eating perfectly in an attempt to achieve a particular body ideal. This is despite both of us having Masters in nutrition. I was a disordered eater for more than 10 years before I stumbled upon the non-diet approach to nutrition and health and started to try and repair my relationship with my body and food. And yes, we know this is a bit of a departure from our usual fermentation-focused blogs, but bear with us. How we feel about our bodies is tied up in pretty much everything we do. So let’s dig into why we think everyone should ditch the diets this in 2026.
1. Weight Is a Pretty Rubbish Indicator of Health
Somewhere along the way, weight was crowned the king of health - even though it’s one of the least informative things we can measure. Your weight tells us nothing about:
your blood pressure
your cholesterol
your fitness
your mental wellbeing
your food patterns
your stress levels
your sleep
your social and economic environment
or your genetics.
And speaking of genetics: around 70% of your body shape and size is predetermined. Before you even learned what a “diet” was, your DNA had already done most of the deciding for you. If you’ve ever felt like you’re fighting your own body to stay at a certain weight, that’s why — you are. We all have a weight “set point” which our bodies biologically defend. Although we can manipulate our body for a while through dieting our body compensates (by lowering metabolism and increasing hunger) to help get your body back to where it wants to be. This is why diets often only work for a little while - see more below.
And while weight is treated as a proxy for health, that’s largely due to reductionist thinking — our human urge to neatly categorise complex things into simple boxes. But health is never that simple. Unless we're talking about extremes at either end of the weight spectrum, you cannot tell how healthy someone is by looking at them.
2. Diets Don’t Work (And Often Make Health Worse)
This isn’t about blaming individuals. It’s about acknowledging the truth: Diets fail people — people don’t fail diets. We now have decades of research showing:
Only about 20% of people maintain weight loss after one year.
That number drops dramatically by year two.
By year five, up to 77% of the original losers regain the weight (and often more).
This rebound is not a lack of willpower — it’s biology. Restriction triggers:
increased hunger hormones
slowed metabolism
heightened preoccupation with food
binge-restrict cycles
weight cycling (yo-yo dieting).
And weight cycling, ironically, is linked with higher risk of hypertension, some cancers, and overall mortality. So the thing we’re told will make us healthier often doesn’t. Plus, on a mental health level, dieting is strongly associated with:
food obsession
body dissatisfaction
anxiety
depression
binge eating.
That’s a pretty heavy cost for something that doesn’t even give the thing it promises us.
3. Scales Don’t Measure Anything That Matters
If you’ve ever stepped on a scale, felt your stomach drop, and had your whole day derailed, you’re not alone. Scales can dictate our mood, our self-worth, and even our behaviour. But here’s the kicker: your weight can fluctuate up to 2-3kg in a single day based on things like hydration, hormones, digestion, bowel movements, illness, and stress. How can something that changes that wildly be a reliable measure of your health, your progress, or your value? Spoiler: it can’t. So if your scales regularly make you feel like crap, they’re not a tool — they’re a trap.
4. The Real Harm Isn’t Our Bodies — It’s Weight Stigma
Much of what we think we “know” about weight and health fails to account for weight stigma — the chronic stress, discrimination, and shame people experience simply for living in a larger body. And chronic stress is harmful to health in ways far more profound than body size itself. Weight stigma is one of the most under-acknowledged drivers of poor health outcomes, yet it’s rarely accounted for in weight-focused research. So when studies claim weight = health, ask yourself:
Did they account for access to healthcare?
Did they account for internalised stigma?
Did they account for chronic stress?
Did they measure behaviours or only BMI?
5. There Is a Better Way: Health at Every Size® (HAES)
The HAES approach isn’t about ignoring health. It’s about reclaiming it from a system that’s fixated on shrinking bodies rather than supporting people. HAES is built on the idea that:
bodies naturally come in diverse shapes and sizes
health is influenced by far more than weight
behaviours matter more than numbers
you deserve respect, dignity, and care at any size.
And - crucially - you can improve your health without changing your body. Eating intuitively, moving in ways you enjoy, managing stress, nurturing relationships, sleeping well, getting access to good healthcare — these improve health for people in bodies of all sizes.
6. So What Do You Do Instead of Dieting This January?
Shift the focus from “How do I get smaller?” to “How do I feel better?”. And as an aside food will be just one small part of feeling better, but not stressing about sticking to diets or weighing yourself is a great place to start! Try asking yourself:
What foods make me feel satisfied and energised?
What movement feels good in my body?
How is my mood?
How is my stress level?
Am I sleeping well?
Am I connecting with people I love?
How is my digestive health? (just fyi fermented foods can help here 😉)
These markers tell you far more about your health than any scale ever could.
Your body is not a problem to be solved. It’s not an obstacle to your health. And it certainly does not need a January makeover. You deserve a relationship with food - and your body - that isn’t rooted in shame, punishment, or scarcity. This January, instead of dieting, choose nourishment, curiosity and compassion. Choose health that’s defined by how you feel, not how you look. Your body, exactly as it is right now, is worthy of care.
