Just three days into 2022, I had already lost count of the number of ads promoting weight-loss programmes and diet regimes on social media. The message these ads are sending is clear: weight loss should be one of my New Year’s resolutions. There is nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight. It is the tactic of the diet industry that I am criticising here. They put forward the idea that the “new you” in the “new year” is inseparable from your body weight. The number on the scale determines how much you have achieved over the year. You might have landed your dream job and bought your first car, but you’re not successful enough because you’ve gained weight. You’re still the same old lazy person who eats more than you visit the gym. On the contrary, if you’ve lost weight, you’ve become a better version of yourself – more disciplined and regulated. Diet mentality is harmful to our health because it equates our worth with the indicator that least reflects it – body weight. We become accustomed to determining our success by our body size. Together with all the before-and-after posts on social media, we feel pressured to present this slimmer version of ourselves to the world as an indicator of how “perfect” our lives have become. Seeing these posts makes us envious of those who have lost weight. They represent the person you wish you could become in the new year. The person who looks as though they have got everything together. This is how diet culture sells. It tricks you into believing that by prioritising weight loss in your New Year’s resolutions, you will transform into that glamorous “new you” in 2022. Multiple studies have showed how these marketing strategies affect our health. Detection rates of underweight secondary school students have increased between 2010-11 and 2019-20. With ads portraying weight loss as a symbol of success, more young people feel pressured to adopt “slimming” diets such as replacing meals with detox juices for long periods. These diets could establish disordered eating habits, increasing the risk of developing anorexia nervosa. The pandemic has already taken much away from us. There is no reason to squander more energy on the sugar-coated lies that diet culture sells. Let 2022 be the year of health and success – defined in your terms, not society’s. Sannya Li, Tung Chung