Wild guess: You were planning to put “go on a diet” on your list of resolutions. Let us just stop you right there. Over a quarter of people in the MENA region are on a diet, falling between the global range of 20-40%, according to a 2017 research review in ​Obesity Reviews​. This statistic doesn’t come as too much of a surprise, seeing as we each have several friends and family members (or are among those) who opt out of dessert with a wave of their hand and an “I’m on a diet” excuse.

The thing with diets is that their failure rate is a whopping 95%: Even if you do get to your target weight, only 5% of people who diet to lose weight will keep it off for more than five years, according to research published in the National Library for Medicine. If anything, diets often make you unhealthier, both physically and mentally: Strict eating regimens “may also have unintended consequences, contributing to food and body preoccupation, repeated cycles of weight loss and regain, distraction from other personal health goals and wider health determinants, reduced self-esteem, eating disorders, other health decrement, and weight stigmatization and discrimination,” according to a study.

Despite its propensity for failure, diet culture can be found everywhere: Diet culture is a set of beliefs that worships thinness and equates it with health and moral virtue, according to anti-diet dietitian and author of Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison. Diet culture leads to the moralization of food where some are good and some are bad, a concept that is made more potent with the idea that “you are what you eat.” Think of the narrative around certain foods such as quinoa versus pizza or the way brands market their “healthy” products.

The main problem with diet culture is that it tries to force a one-size-fits-all approach. “It assumes that eating in a certain way will result in the right body size and good health, and that it's attainable for anybody who has the 'right' willpower, the 'right' determination,” Judith Matz, author of The Body Positivity Card Deck and Diet Survivor's Handbook, said to Good Housekeeping.

But since every body type is different, diet culture sets up a huge proportion of people for failure. Instead of dieting, people should (hint: this is your anti-resolution) adopt a health approach that is attainable and meant to sustain long term changes by being customized to their body type. These should not be based not on weight or body goals, but on lifestyle changes that will improve people's lives without having them fixated on being a certain weight.

Enter body positivity movements — and a more reasonable approach to health: These movements aim to shed light about the negative impacts of the common narrative that thinness equals beauty, health, and motivation. The Health at Every Size (HAES) approach promotes balanced eating, life-enhancing physical activity, and respect for the diversity of body shapes and sizes. HAES also sheds light on issues in the public health system towards people with different body types, touching on occurrences of people being denied full health care coverage and routine health screening procedures, while facing increased stigmatization.