Are you feeling confused about the variety of diets on offer but have resolved to lose weight after the festivities?

Then try a diet that not only makes you look good but feel great about yourself, too.

The Ethical Diet is for anyone who would like to combine a weight-loss campaign with their favourite political cause.

The following tips are dedicated to Nestle, the biggest food production company in the world, with an annual turnover of more than £40 billion:

Eat less convenience foods. For a useful list of refined, sugary, salty, packaged, powdered and canned products, you can visit the Nestle web site.

These items should be avoided, if at all possible, as the industrial processing of food removes fibre and valuable nutrients and adds substances which sabotage your attempts to stay healthy and lose weight.

Try to eat five portions of fresh fruit and vegetables every day (preferably from fair-trade sources). Steam, bake, juice or eat them raw to gain a quality of health money can't buy.

Add lean protein such as fish and poultry and don't avoid the good fats found in oily fish, nuts and seeds.

If you are expecting a baby, consider breastfeeding (if possible) as a means of losing weight after pregnancy and to provide your baby with tailor-made nutrients no formula can match.

My childhood was spent in Africa and, as my mother was unable to breastfeed, I started life on babymilk powder.

Luckily, the water for my bottles was clean and the equipment sterilised but millions of babies in poverty-stricken countries are less fortunate.

Unicef estimates that up to 4,000 infants die each day due to unsafe bottle-feeding practices.

Hospitals and local doctors in developing countries are paid incentives to promote Nestle baby milk to new mothers at the expense of a healthier alternative -

breast milk.

Avoid caffeine-containing beverages such as Nescafe and drink plenty of water to start off a gentle detox process.

Many companies have long realised the potential of marketing their own brand of mineral water. Nestle's Pure Life is rolled out to developing countries where bottled water fills a need but those who require it can't afford it.

If Nestle helped invest in clean water supplies, it would generate less profit but save more lives.

Lose excess flab by learning to ski. On your next skiing trip, visit Nestle executives at their headquarters in Switzerland and tell them, politely, what you think of their business ventures around the world. In Pakistan, for instance, Nestle is accused of buying up cheap milk from dairy farmers and selling it back to local people as "long life" at a profit of 200 per cent.

One litre of the processed milk costs more than a farmer's average daily wage.

If skiing isn't your thing, try power-walking or jogging to shift those extra calories.

Let indignation over Nestle's recent demands for debt repayment from the starving Ethiopians galvanise you into action.

Let's make 2003 the year our nutritional resolutions work for us. In the process, we could help make nutritional exploitation a thing of the past.

Martina is a qualified nutritionist at the Crescent Clinic of Complementary Medicine, 37 Vernon Terrace, Brighton. Tel: 01273 202221 or email: martina@thehealthbank.co.uk