Resolutions in the New Year

If one of your New Year’s resolutions includes a healthy body image, it’s important to maintain realistic expectations to ensure success. Making smaller goals helps track your progress and allows you to acknowledge your successful milestones more frequently. For example, “recover from my eating disorder” may be a large and potentially daunting resolution while “join an eating disorder support group” or “keep a food journal” are powerful and attainable steps towards the overarching goal that should be celebrated.

It’s important to keep in mind that there is not a “perfect” route to the development of a healthy and positive body image. What works for some will not work for others, so it’s important to identify what you know you’ll enjoy doing. Additionally, if it turns out one method doesn’t help much, you can create a new resolution at any time. Constantly working on smaller goals will make the “big” resolutions possible.

For more information, see Psychology Today’s article on recovery in the new year: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/when-food-is-family/201601/recovery-eating-disorder-is-possible. ​