With the new year come various resolutions that some people set for themselves, related to their own well-being and lifestyle. Many of these are directly or indirectly connected to food. Different surveys from various media sources agree in pointing out that among the most common resolutions are: losing weight, exercising, being more organized, spending more time with family and friends, traveling more, and learning a new skill or taking up a new hobby.
The issue with resolutions is that, in many cases, the goals involve high expectations with commitments that, although they require individual willpower to achieve, if not accomplished, can lead to frustration and anxiety.
Even the way objectives are formulated carries an implicit importance that is sometimes overlooked. For example, many people set weight loss as a goal. It is worth asking what lies behind this ambition, since weight itself is just one indicator among a multiplicity of others and alone does not reflect a state of health. However, in an era where alarming rates of obesity prevail, the desire to lose weight is justified by a medicalized good conscience. Clearly, there is an undeniable health component, but often this health component also justifies a deeper ambition to conform to beauty standards that favor thinness or fit bodies, or even as a way to control the body when so many aspects of contemporary lifestyles become uncertain, unpredictable, and therefore beyond individual control. To a greater or lesser extent, none of us can escape these socially imposed norms. In this context, rather than focusing on weight, it would be better to propose something more positive, such as trying to eat better in every sense (health, emotional, cultural, and social).
The resolution to travel more fits perfectly within the ideology of the Millennial generation, which prefers experiences over material possessions. For many people, traveling is inseparable from tasting and trying new flavors and foods associated with the places they visit. In fact, this is one of the essential points that determines whether someone enjoys or dislikes traveling, according to some studies, depending on a person’s food neophilia (interest, enthusiasm, and curiosity for trying new flavors) or, conversely, their degree of food neophobia (fear or aversion to trying new flavors). All humans move between these two states to varying degrees, and it is during travel that these tendencies are most tested.
Finally, resolutions to spend more time with family, be more organized, and/or learn a new skill may be intimately connected if we consider food and cooking as aspects that encompass all these dimensions. Cooking helps organize mental processes and manual skills, and if shared with loved ones, can foster social bonds, with always new dishes or techniques to learn. For many people, cooking may not be the ideal hobby, as it is part of their daily obligations.
Whatever your New Year’s resolution, do not be frustrated if you do not achieve it, and remember that, above all, we are also cultural and social beings, united by food in ways that are often overlooked.
Originally published in El Economista
#resolutions #lifestyle #pleasure #exercise #loseweight
— This article was originally published in Spanish by Liliana Martínez Lomelí. Translation generated with AI from the original text.