I want to tell you about a New Year’s intention I made for this year…. And no, it was not to “eat the queso”.
It wasn’t a “new year, new me” kind of thing. It wasn’t a 30-day cleanse or a Whole30 or a January yoga membership I’d quietly cancel by Valentine’s Day. My intention this year — the one I wrote down, the one I actually meant — was to finally do something about the hormonal weight that has crept onto my body in my 40s, courtesy of early perimenopause.
If you’re a woman in your 40s reading this, you already know. The same body that responded to a long walk and a salad in your 30s now looks at you, laughs, and says, “Cute. Try harder.” (It also says you better not eat the queso.)
So that was the plan. Get serious. Get strategic. Get this body back to feeling like me again.
And then I read a survey that stopped me in my tracks.
America Has an “Obsession Problem” — And I Felt That in My Bones
A new poll of 2,000 U.S. adults — commissioned by Pancho’s Cheese Dip, of all places, and conducted by Talker Research — found that 64% of Americans believe the country has a serious “obsession problem.” As in, we will find absolutely anything to fixate on, and lately, that anything is food and our bodies.
Per the survey:
- 65% said people obsess over food
- 55% said people obsess over health and fitness
- 68% believe America would be straight-up happier if we’d all stop obsessing over what we eat
- 77% believe food should be fun
- 62% said keeping up with the latest health fads is exhausting
- 61% said it’s exhausting to avoid foods they actually like just to drop a couple pounds
- 23% frequently feel guilty or judged when they eat their favorite “not-so-healthy” foods
And honestly? Reading that list, I felt seen. Then I felt slightly called out. Then I felt seen again.
Here’s the thing you should know about me: I am not a casual observer of the food and wellness world. I’m a card-carrying member. I went to the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I graduated in 2019. I’ve spent the last five to ten years deeply, deeply in the weeds about what we eat — reading labels, swapping ingredients, learning the difference between inflammation-friendly fats and the kind that wreck you.
For five years, my husband and I were fully plant-based because of a health condition he was managing. Five years of vegan grocery hauls, vegan birthday parties, vegan road trip snacks, vegan everything. I learned more about lentils and cashew cheese in those five years than I ever thought possible. (Yes, I was still able to eat the queso as a vegan!)
So when 64% of America says we have an obsession problem? I cannot pretend I haven’t been part of that conversation. I have been deep in it. Living in it. Studying it.
And here I am, in my 40s, in perimenopause, looking at my New Year’s intention to “drop the hormonal weight” and asking myself a question I genuinely didn’t expect to be asking: what if the obsession is the actual problem?
What Five Years Plant Based and a Nutrition Education Actually Taught Me
I want to be careful here, because I am not bashing healthy eating. I would not have spent two years and a not-small amount of money at IIN if I didn’t believe deeply in the connection between food and how we feel.
What I learned, though — and this is the part nobody on the front page of TikTok wants to hear — is that the rules don’t matter as much as the relationship does. You can eat the most pristine, organic, plant-based, anti-inflammatory, lab-tested-by-a-monk-in-Iceland diet on planet Earth, and if you’re white-knuckling it, hating every bite, isolating yourself from your friends and your family table, secretly resentful, and one chip away from a binge — it isn’t actually working.
The survey backs this up. People described what it feels like to enjoy their favorite food guilt-free in some genuinely poetic terms:
- Relaxing on the beach (38%)
- Sex/having an orgasm (21%)
- Giving the middle finger to health influencers (16%)
- Finishing a movie marathon (12%)
- Getting married (9%)
People are saying that simply enjoying their food without guilt is in the same emotional category as a great vacation, great sex, and their wedding day. That is not a small thing. That is a population that has been holding its breath around food for a very long time.
Maxxing Is Out. At Least For Me.
The survey also flagged the wild rise of “maxxing” trends:
- Proteinmaxxing (noticed by 28%)
- Fibermaxxing (11%)
- Air frying (46% obsessed)
- Zero-sugar drinks (45%)
- “Healthy” snack foods (44%)
- GLP-1s (57% in the health/fitness obsession bucket)
- Counting calories consumed or burned (54%)
- Analyzing health tech data (43%)
I am old enough — 40s, hi — to have lived through low-fat, low-carb, no-carb, juice cleanses, paleo, keto, Whole30, intermittent fasting, “eat for your blood type,” celery juice, bone broth, and now apparently we are stuffing 50 grams of protein into a single muffin and calling it dinner.
At some point, you have to ask: who is this for?
A whopping 73% of survey respondents said there’s at least one food or health fad they wish they could permanently delete from the collective consciousness. Adding protein to everything. Calorie counting. GLP-1s. Intermittent fasting. Crash dieting. One person specifically named “extreme crash dieting” as the thing they wish would die in a fire, and listen — same.
And 57% of people, more than half, said they are sick and tired of being told what they should and shouldn’t be eating.
Lindsay Amundson, VP of Marketing at Pancho’s Cheese Dip, said it best in the survey announcement: “People feel like they have to ‘maxx out’ every part of their lives right now. We think there’s really only one thing worth ‘maxxing’ — fun.”
I laughed when I read that, because of course it came from a queso brand. But also — they’re right… Let’s just have fun and eat the queso!
So Where Does That Leave Me, in My 40s, in Perimenopause, With a Very Real Goal?
Here’s where I’ve landed, and I’m sharing it because I suspect a lot of you are right here with me:
I still care about food quality. Five to ten years of focusing on what I eat hasn’t gone anywhere. I still read labels. I still cook from scratch most of the time. I still believe deeply that what you put on your plate matters, especially during the hormonal earthquake that is perimenopause.
I’m still working on dropping this hormonal weight. That intention hasn’t changed. My body is going through a real, biological transition, and I’m meeting it with care. I work out three to six times a week at WEFit, and I have never been happier doing it.
But I am done — DONE — pretending that food is just fuel. Food is community. It’s culture. It’s my mom’s kitchen. It’s the date-night chips and queso with my girlfriends. It’s the birthday cake my kids picked out. It’s my husband’s favorite meal that His mom makes when she comes to visit. It’s a mocktail margarita on a patio in May.
The survey asked: would you rather have a margarita on the patio or a protein shake after the gym? 64% picked the margarita. And 92% would rather share their favorite foods with friends than go to group spin classes.
I am, unapologetically, in those majorities.
The Permission Slip I’m Writing Myself…And You
If you are also a woman in your 40s navigating a body that doesn’t behave like it used to, can I tell you what I’m doing this year?
I’m choosing both. I’m choosing to take care of my body AND let it eat the queso. I’m choosing to honor the very real changes happening to me hormonally AND not let the wellness internet bully me into a black-and-white relationship with food. I’m choosing my education and my intuition AND a long, joyful dinner with my family where nobody is counting anything.
Because the goal was never to hit some arbitrary number on a scale or weigh out 27 grams of broccoli at 5:42 p.m. The goal was to feel good in my life. To have energy for my kids. To show up for my husband. To live in this Orlando heat and these long beautiful days with a body that works with me, not against me.
You can be intentional about your health AND eat the queso. You can be in perimenopause AND enjoy your wedding-anniversary tacos. You can be a literal nutrition school graduate AND look at a chart of “proteinmaxxing” trends and roll your eyes.
The obsession is not the path. The relationship is. So this year, mama, may we all maxx exactly one thing: fun.
(And maybe — just maybe — chips and queso. The survey says 12% of Americans named queso as their ultimate “I don’t care if it’s unhealthy, I’m eating it anyway” food. I’m not saying I voted. I’m not saying I didn’t.)
Research methodology: Talker Research surveyed 2,000 general population Americans with internet access; the survey was commissioned by Pancho’s Cheese Dip and conducted online between April 10 and April 16, 2026. The complete methodology, as part of AAPOR’s Transparency Initiative, is available on the Talker Research Process and Methodology page.
