The New Year's resolution. A chance at a new start and to change what we don't like about ourselves and our lives for the better. Like many Americans, at the start of the year, I made a set of goals for 2016. This list included typical things like, "Go to class more often!" and "Save at least a dollar a week." However, there was one resolution I came up with that didn't seem complete: I wanted to lose weight.

Losing weight is a common resolution, so common that it's almost become a New Year's cliche. The diet industry capitalizes on this, with ads after ads about the fastest way to lose weight without much effort. There are products released with the sole intention of "improving" a specific body part without actually improving your health or well-being. It was while watching one of these ads that I realized that my goal of losing weight wasn't complete. If I truly wanted to improve my health and well-being, I had to go far beyond my physical health.

Why? Because we live in a society where both women and men are taught to hate themselves and hate their bodies. Women are either too fat or not "curvy" enough, and are taught that unless they "take care of themselves", they will never be happy or healthy. Men are emasculated based off their height, build, etc, and are told that they aren't masculine or attractive enough without those things. This has lead to a society of self-hatred, where 91percent of women will feel unhappy with their bodies and try to change it, whether that be via diet or plastic surgery.

If we truly want to be healthy and happy in 2016, we have to come up with a new resolution: the body positive resolution. It's perfectly okay to want to lose weight/gain muscle/etc. However, what we do with our bodies should always come from a place of love. It's time to do away with shaming those for their bodies, as this fails to make us happy (in fact, victims of fat shaming are more likely to gain weight). Changing our body due to self-hatred only leads to misery, poor mental health, and for some unhealthy behaviors.

So how do we implement a body positive resolution? The first step is to remember that everybody deserves to love ourselves, and while health is important you don't have to be healthy to be beautiful, loved, and powerful. Judging someone's body (or personality) due to perceived health is ridiculous and oftentimes ableist. Remember that our bodies are capable of amazing things.

Our bodies have been keeping us alive, and sometimes when we feel at our worst we push through because of what our bodies and our minds are capable of. Next, if you do choose to change, remember that your body is amazing no matter what state it's at. You have every right to look cute in crop tops or shorts, and nobody can tell you otherwise. Finally, remember that when it comes to beauty, beauty is 100 percent subjective, and the only opinion that matters is your own. Make it a good one.

The whole point of a New Years resolution is a brand new change for a new year. In 2016, let's change our mental outlook as well as our physical one. Loving yourself is important because you only get one body and one life. Let's try our best to have a happy life.