As Veganuary faces internal backlash and Dry January draws scientific scrutiny, experts question whether month-long resolutions drive real change or simply rehearse habits that return by February.
Thinking about your New Year’s resolution? Maybe you’re planning to try Veganuary. Or perhaps Dry January feels like the perfect clean break after holiday indulgence. These campaigns have become fixtures of early January scrolling, plastered across social feeds and dinner conversation alike. But behind the aspirational hashtags and inspirational stories lie two questions consumers quietly ask: Does a month of self-imposed rules really make a difference? And does it stick?
Not long ago, the global vegan-for-January phenomenon was practically unassailable. In January 2025, organizers reported that around 25.8 million people participated in Veganuary worldwide, making it one of the largest lifestyle campaigns of the year. Participation didn’t just come from die-hards, either — corporations, municipalities, and brands from coast to coast leaned into plant-based messaging and menu rollouts as part of the moment.
But participation and impact are not the same thing. Critics point out that short bursts of discipline sometimes deliver temporary behavior change at best, and little to no lasting effect at worst. That disconnect between enthusiasm and follow-through is now being openly debated — even within Veganuary’s own orbit.
When the pushback comes from inside the movement
Former Veganuary head of communications Toni Vernelli publicly broke with the campaign she once helped shape. After nearly six years at Veganuary and decades in animal-welfare advocacy, Vernelli has joined the charity FarmKind, which launched a deliberately confrontational initiative urging people to “Forget Veganuary.” Instead of asking consumers to stop eating meat, the campaign encourages continued consumption paired with monthly donations to animal-welfare organizations focused on improving farming conditions.
Vernelli has argued that strict diet change alienates people who care about animals but are unwilling or unable to give up meat entirely. She said years of campaigning convinced her that “asking people to give up meat” often narrows impact, while financial support for welfare reform can scale far beyond individual consumption choices.
Veganuary strongly rejected that framing. A spokesperson likened the approach to “deliberately setting a fire and then donating to the fire brigade,” arguing that reducing demand is the only way to prevent animals from being bred into suffering in the first place. The exchange exposed a deeper fault line: whether short, values-driven abstinence is a meaningful catalyst for long-term change, or whether it has become a symbolic gesture that feels productive without lasting effect.
Veganuary itself appears to be grappling with that question. Its current “New Year, Same You” campaign shifts away from reinvention and toward continuity. CEO Wendy Matthews framed the approach this way: “Veganuary has never been about being perfect, and you don’t need to reinvent yourself or change your values to participate,” she said in a statement. “It is less about changing, and more about returning to who you already are.”
Dry January and the problem with January-only discipline
The same tension plays out in Dry January, which has become an equally familiar marker of New Year’s resolve. Public-health guidance is unambiguous that alcohol carries risk. The World Health Organization has stated that “no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health,” citing links to cancer, sleep disruption, and cognitive decline. But whether abstaining from alcohol for one month meaningfully changes long-term outcomes is far less clear.
Ezekiel J. Emanuel, an oncologist, bioethicist, professor, and the author of Eat Your Ice Cream, argues that Dry January often mistakes intensity for effectiveness.
“Every year, millions of people make the same mistake: they swear off alcohol for the first month of the New Year as part of Dry January. Then February shows up, and so do their old habits,” Emanuel wrote in a recent Time article. “If your goal is better health, not a 31-day performance of virtue, the smarter play is to redesign how you drink for the next 12 months, rather than to white knuckle one of them.”
His critique echoes broader longevity research that consistently shows that longevity isn’t about extremes, “it’s about moderation, consistency, and connection,” Emanuel said. “Many healthy people don’t cut alcohol completely; they drink lightly, socially, and purposefully. What protects their hearts and extends their lives isn’t the wine, but the friends across the dinner table.”
It also builds on research showing that New Year’s resolutions and one-month commitments don’t tend to stick. New data shows that only 18 percent of U.S. adults made a New Year’s resolution for 2025, down sharply from 38 percent the year before. Among those who did set goals, half said they failed before the year ended, and almost half reported the resolution had fizzled within six months.
What you can still get right in January
That does not mean these campaigns are meaningless. Some data suggests structured participation matters. Studies of Dry January programs show that participants who enroll formally are more likely to reduce drinking and report improved well-being six months later compared with those who attempt abstinence informally. Veganuary reports that 80 percent of non-vegan participants were still eating at least 50 percent fewer animal products six months later, with 28 percent remaining fully plant-based.
The common thread is not the month itself, but what follows. January works best as an audit rather than a finish line — a way to surface habits, values, and friction points that usually go unnoticed. When the challenge ends without a plan, behavior tends to snap back. When it opens the door to structural changes — different shopping routines, new social norms, clearer limits — some of those shifts endure.
But says Emanuel, most people don’t need another rule. “They need a framework that makes healthy behavior automatic.” He says you can start by asking what you are really optimizing for. “If you tell yourself you drink ‘for your heart,’ be honest about the trade-offs. In most cases, he says, “the honest answer is nuanced,” not a blank check.
“The point isn’t to ‘win’ January,” Emanuel says. “It’s to make January through December healthy and happy: fewer risky nights, more dinners with friends, and routines that don’t depend on heroic self-control.”
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