New Year Resolutions: How Companies Shame You Out of Billions of Pounds

As the festive period draws to a close and the shiny-eyed optimism over the year ahead begins, it's safe to say that all the money that you thought you 'saved' in the sales will only go back into the retail and service industries to better improve your disgusting self.

Yes, that's right, it's a new year so it's time to stop being so fat, a failure at your job, and alone, showing how you're out with the old and in with the new.

Money can't buy you happiness but it can, at least, mean that you can pay over the odds for liquidised or microwave meals that taste like a cross between roofing paste and cough medicine for the low-low price of half your salary each month.

If that isn't enough, why not pay to weigh yourself in public so everyone can see just how fat and revolting you are?

As the shame washes over your muffin top and revolting cellulite, you can use the public humiliation to make your partner, friends, and your children love you even more with every pound lost.

Look here! This daughter is delighted that her mum is now no longer fat and she can spend that quality time with her now that she isn't a porker. "It's more fun!"

But diets aren't enough. What about getting your backside down to the gym?

According to a range of US and UK statistics, 90% have good intentions at the beginning of year, when it comes to losing weight.

By the end of January only 64% have hung in there and have blasted away some of that disgusting fat. By the time we reach summer only 44% have bothered to see it through.

Meanwhile, a range of reports estimate that Britons waste around £35-£40m a year on gym memberships because, after the January period, they are still signed up but don't go anymore.

Reports over the last two years have shown that between 77%-87% of us admitted to trying and failing to improve their health in previous years.

But who cares about the cost of living crisis, which has hit Britain over the last few years, when you could vastly improve yourself by eating the right branded products?

I mean, look at Mo Farah, look how happy he is! He's achieving the dream by eating a large amount of premium-priced flavoured gravel!

But, what's this? You're fat AND alone? Well, just like your liquidised five-a-day, you can now order up a date by signing up to some new online dating websites.

It's estimated that we spend £2bn a year on dating websites and in the UK we part with £170m a year.

As this chap and chapess say, "it builds your confidence" and "what have you got to lose?" - well hundreds of pounds personally after the free trial runs out for starters.

On top of that, according to UKdating.com, women are likely to spend £2,000 finding 'Mr. Right.'

Enough is Enough

Now, improving your health and happiness should never be sniffed at and with an obesity 'epidemic' hitting our country, eating less and moving more should become part of your lifestyle.

But when it comes to January, when you're feeling tired, vulnerable and over-indulged, being shamed into changing is enough to tip you over the edge.

Considering we're all visually machine-gunned into hating ourselves already, with myriad adverts and celebrity magazines, let's try and not let companies profit even more from our low self-esteem.

But before naysayers claim that the shock may make us change for the better, peer-reviewed papers show that it can have the exact opposite on us in the long-term.

For example, according to the Journal of Clinical Psychology, 54% give up on their resolutions within six months and only 8% ultimately succeed by the end of the year. It also shows that short-term changes vastly outweighs long-term amendments.

In the end, our New Year's resolutions you could end up losing you more pounds from your wallet than off your body.