"Why Your New Year’s Resolution Should Be Self-Acceptance" an Interview with Kristen Mitchell

A new year brings a season of change and the opportunity to focus on goals for the future. For many people, however, resolutions about weight loss and eating can often reinforce negative messages about bodies and prop up unrealistic stereotypes. 

Kavita Daiya, a professor in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, said the most successful New Year’s resolutions focus on self-acceptance and achieving specific active goals—not vague platitudes about weight loss.

Read what Dr. Daiya had to say about body positivity ahead of the holiday season:

Q: There is a lot of talk about bodies and food around the holidays. What impact does that have on how we see ourselves?  A: Yes, the holidays are so much about enjoying food, family and celebration together, and about New Year’s resolutions. Media representations of the holidays and New Year’s resolutions can often reinforce negative and unrealistic body stereotypes, especially in advertising. As we discussed in my Gender and Media course this fall, a lot of media content is shaped by advertisers, and advertising aims to get us to buy stuff and buy into stuff: hence, for example, the recent Peloton controversy. Being surrounded by these negative messages that there’s something wrong with how we are right now, and that we need to change or remake ourselves and our bodies to fit an unreal, photoshopped image can be very stressful, to say the least.

Read the full interview on GW Today

Image Credit: Autumn Goodman

#selfacceptance #newyear #resolutions #gender #genderstereotypes #bodyimage