On resolutions, diet culture, and choosing care over correction
January arrives with a particular kind of insistence. Almost overnight, we are surrounded by messages telling us who we should become next. Eat differently. Move differently. Want less. Be better organized. More disciplined. More intentional. The implication is subtle but persistent: who you are right now is not enough, and the clock has restarted on fixing that.
For many people, this pressure feels exhausting but familiar. For others — especially those who have been harmed by diet culture — it can feel deeply destabilizing. January doesn’t just invite change; it demands transformation, often without regard for context, capacity, or consent.
When we talk about New Year’s resolutions, it’s worth slowing down and asking what we actually mean by them. In the United States, three of the four most common resolutions relate to our bodies. Eat healthier. Exercise more. Lose weight. Even the ones that don’t — like saving more money — often carry the same undertone of correction, the quiet suggestion that something about our lives needs to be fixed.
These goals sound aspirational, but they are rarely specific. They are broad, ambiguous, and heavy, and we tend to carry them like burdens rather than intentions. We tell ourselves we should eat healthier without ever defining what that means for our actual lives. Do we mean less saturated fat, or more variety? More vegetables, or fewer pleasures? When we resolve to exercise more, are we imagining punishment disguised as discipline, or are we longing to move our bodies in ways that feel accessible, connective, or even joyful?
The ambiguity matters. When a goal has no clear shape, it becomes impossible to succeed. We are left constantly wondering whether we are doing enough, trying hard enough, wanting the right things. The failure is never the goal, but it is built into the framework itself.
This ambiguity is not accidental. A goal that can never be clearly met is a goal you can never complete. When success is undefined, you are left striving, falling short, and searching for the next solution that promises to finally make things click. The failure begins to feel personal, even when it isn’t.
This is how many industries are sustained. When the framework itself produces dissatisfaction, it can always offer another plan, another program, another purchase. The problem is never the system — it’s you, not trying hard enough yet.
Even resolutions that seem neutral, like saving more money, often hide the same logic. Rarely do we pause to ask whether the issue is actually overspending, or whether it’s rising costs, systemic instability, or a lack of margin in our lives. Instead, we internalize the pressure and turn it inward, assuming that if we were just more disciplined, things would feel easier.
Diet culture thrives in this moment — not just around food, but around bodies, productivity, and worth. It frames restriction as virtue and control as care. It promises clarity through discipline, worth through self-denial, and belonging through compliance. And while we often think of diet culture as something that lives only in food and bodies, it doesn’t stop there. It spills into our homes, our habits, our calendars, and our sense of what a “good” life is supposed to look like.
You can see it in the way decluttering is sometimes framed this time of year — as a moral reset, a chance to prove you’re serious about change. Less stuff, fewer indulgences, tighter rules. As if “less” automatically means “better,” and as if wanting comfort, beauty, or ease is something to be suspicious of.
But many of the expectations we place on ourselves in January are unreasonable. They ask us to overhaul our lives while ignoring the realities of our bodies, our histories, our energy, and the world we are living in. They tell us that rest is laziness, pleasure is excess, and that self-acceptance is a kind of failure. They leave very little room for curiosity, tenderness, or trust.
For people in fat bodies, these messages often land with extra weight. Diet culture has spent years teaching us to distrust ourselves — our hunger, our preferences, our instincts. January simply turns up the volume. It insists that now is the moment to finally get it right, to finally exert enough control to be worthy of ease.
But what if the problem isn’t that we haven’t tried hard enough?
What if the problem is the framework itself?
At Unfolde, we don’t believe that your body, your home, or your life is a project in need of correction. We believe that clarity comes from listening, not punishing. That care is something you practice with yourself, not something you earn by becoming smaller — in your body or in your life.
This is why we approach decluttering differently. Not as a test of discipline, but as an opportunity to notice where pressure has replaced choice. Where obligation has overridden desire. Where cultural narratives — especially diet culture — have quietly dictated what you’re allowed to keep, want, or need.
If you’re feeling worn down by January, you are not alone. And you are not behind. You are not failing at resolutions you never truly consented to in the first place.
If you’re looking for a gentler way to begin the year, we created the Declutter Diet Culture Checklist as a tool for unlearning and reconnecting rather than fixing. It’s not about doing more or being better. It’s about noticing where diet culture shows up in your home, your habits, and your expectations — and giving yourself permission to opt out.
You can use it slowly. You can use it imperfectly. You can use it simply as a reminder that you are allowed to choose care over correction.
January doesn’t have to be a reckoning.
It can be a pause.
A moment to decide that you don’t need to earn your right to take up space — in your body, your home, or your life.
Kelley Jonkoff is the founder of Unfolde, where she helps people create homes rooted in self-trust, clarity, and care — not shame or self-denial.