Checkout My Idea For Improving America's Health

Z

zabrak999

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A massive project that’ll get Americans in shape, in all age groups. The project will tackle obesity like how groups tackled cigarettes back in the day, and will be the largest battle against unhealthy lifestyle choices since that.

Goals:

Federal ban on high fructose corn syrup/kill government's subsidies/Research Europe's relation with HFCS. Sames goes for the variety of other contributors. Get them to subsidize the fruit and vegetable industry instead

Make healthy vegetables and meat to be inexpensive

Promote how they're a burden to the country's economy

Research the difference between American and European food. Note what's packed in our food, and find a reason to end it.

Teach people how terrible obesity is to your body, liken overeating to cigarette smoking through a brilliant, massive marketing campaign. Campaign should include limiting portions

Try to get all schools to educate kids about nutrition and overeating in elementary school.

Promote more kids playing outside

Solve problems that's ensue of reducing influence on corn sugar hfcs (increased sugar cane prices etc)

Reform P.E.

Reform school lunches

Change the lame stigma on eating well, as well as being overweight. Shame people who are fat, in a similar way that we do with people who smoke cigarettes.

Research the correlation with low income and obesity. Drastically cut down on it, with acquired knowledge

Tax soda and energy drinks

Tie part of health insurance cost to healthy bodyfat percentage,

Tie part of health insurance cost to smoking

PLEASE offer any constructive criticism you can. You know, give me your guys' classic pessimistic, elitist input. But you know, something that's constructive .
Thanks!
 
Some nice ideas on the surface. Thought a number of them myself but reality is you have forgotten some major parts of human nature that are common, fashionable and over-embraced, these are stupidity, ignorance, laziness and lack of responsibility. Things are never the peoples fault, they weren't told, they didn't realise how bad things were, it was too much effort when they didn't have the time and it was someone else's fault.
This will look like an insulting post but I will give an example of why I believe this and feel it cannot be ignored and the last is worst.
My grandfather was a genuine person of low education, farm labourer in youth illiterate soldier in WW2, general dogsbody after. Someone who would have had genuine reason to declare ignorance through lack of education and understanding. He smoked from age 10 or so as many did, and the cause of his death was lung cancer. The man who genuinely knew no different when he started could have been one of many making excuses for sympathy, and didn't. He had known for at least 20 years that smoking was a killer, he could have stopped but didn't and deemed that his own fault and the type of demise only what he deserved.
In contrast I have seen people who went to the same schools as me, being told from the youngest of ages the dangers of smoking, bad diet, lack of exercise, alcohol and narcotics. They are now in dreadful health or in many cases dead because they saw these as things to rebel against and their stupidity was considered cool. When I see them now they are full of excuses, blame for others, even having the audacity to lie about limited education from classes where I was sat with them.
Tobacco and alcohol are heavily taxed, so illegal supplies from abroad are purchased or in some cases illegal hooch is sold and in one case I remember it was literally blinding people.
People have to want to be fit and healthy and genuinely care. Truth is they don't because it is cooler to be stupid, ignorant, lazy while blaming others than to train hard and take responsibility for your actions.

Banning substances or jacking up prices feeds illegal markets. Most drug related crime is due to the illegality of the substance. If you run up a debt at the store selling you alcohol and tobacco they will take you to court, if you do the same with an illegal drug dealer they can't take you to court so have to collect via other means. It's not nice but this is the truth of banned products.
People are educated about the dangers of lifestyle, they just ignore it. I see people talking about public information broadcasts as if they are a joke while they eat burgers and smoke.
I do agree in making healthy food cheaper but this would have to be by subsidy. The whole point of processed food is to be able to sell junk cheap in large volumes. I don't find eating healthy expensive but that's because I am willing to put in the effort.
Stigma takes time to change and while the majority remain lazy the stigma will go to the minority. This will not change. Consider that for years the best selling 'exercise' equipment were electronic stimulators. People don't like effort, it's to much like hard work, far easier to put down those willing to try.
There is a stigma on fat people now. It isn't helping in the same way as some of the smoking stigma isn't. People become belligerent staying fat as a form of protest, yes it's stupid, it's also true.
Don't know about the US but in the UK health related illness or habits like smoking and history of heart issues already affect insurance prices. They are subsidising me nicely.

Correlation between low income and obesity has been researched and the links were very obvious. Many on low incomes are ironically working long hours at mind numbing jobs or not at all. This means most are either tired all the time or demotivated most of it. They see school as a waste of time because they attended it and gained no tangible benefit so rebel against what they were taught.
The places they shop are generally low end supermarkets selling junk cheap. There will be healthy food but rarely in the convenience section.
By the time they have but ready meals, cigarettes and alcohol they don't see fruit etc. as a worthwhile purchase.
There is a lot of trickle down the generations too. Parents smoked, drank and fed them junk so they follow suit.
There is a lot of drug use among many but ironically it hits bottom and top earners highest. People who smoke, drink and use illegal substances are really not going to care about healthy living.
They also feel the state is there to provide for them completely or that they are working hard enough for them to get something out of it so being a financial drain doesn't matter to them.

Totally honest here. I wish there was a nice shiny silver bullet that would stop the downward trend of worldwide health. There isn't, life has been made very easy and people will take the easiest route where they can. People like us who care are in the minority, but we do get the last laugh.
I have done research on health effects of bad lifestyle and the results are hilarious. The fat and lazy may live as long as us, but by half way the blood pressure will be in realms of out of control, cardio vascular health will be caput, endurance will be a thing of the past and they will look like hell ate a blimp. So at the same age along come the boring hard working fitness freaks, we look like demi-gods or at least far better than they do, have the endurance, blood pressure control and mobility to not only still be attractive to our partners but keep them happy too. In short they can keep their stupidity and die boring lazy wasters, I'd rather be me.
 
I agree with a lot of what Oldie has to say, although not 100% (here's one thing I definitely agree with, though: I'm way too lazy to point out bits I'd disagree with; really it's his fault for writing in such a way as to demand readers read in order to respond).

Over the last couple weeks, I've put together a report which subscribers to my website can get for free (I won't post a link here, because that just stinks of something spamalicious) which is all about behaviour change. Why'd I write it? Because it's more of a challenge for me (writing about fitness is just what I do, so that'd be too easy), and because there's an endless supply of information out there that people are receiving and not adhering to (also because as a PT, working with people who aren't actually mentally ready to change is a thorough drain, so having a freebie on behaviour change as the first thing they get out of me will help some to be good clients and will maybe give a clue to those who aren't interested in behaviour change not to ask about training).

The report works through a triadic model of behaviour: predisposing factors, reinforcing factors and enabling factors.

Predisposing factors are your own attitudes, values, beliefs, knowledge, experience, etc. Most people have enough information to make better food/exercise choices, but their attitudes and values point in the opposite direction.

Enabling factors are largely the issues focused on here: subsidies, legalisation/illegalisation, cost, access etc. Enabling factors make it easier or more difficult to do something...but they do nothing to make you want/oppose something. Council-funded parks are an enabling factor for fitness, because anyone can use them. I live right next to a park, and for the most part it's empty, completely unused. It is easily accessible, but most people just don't care to use it.

Reinforcing factors deal with social trends. What are the attitudes of: the world? the nation? the state? the city/region? the district? the neighborhood? your family and friends? All of these things have an influence. The trick with these campaigns is to actually get people to resonate with the message, which I think happens far more effectively when it's done subtly enough to look and feel organic. So, having ads on TV promoting vegetables and corning fast food, for example, results in people going: "Oh, I see, you're telling me what to think. Incidentally, fk you, I'm going to Macca's." Having the characters on TV shows visibly eating healthy and being (not getting, just being) active and not everyone going along with it as though it's completely normal is probably a more effective approach.

This is called acculturation. You don't try to teach people that they should behave a certain way, you just treat it as completely normal and ordinary to live that way. This creates experience, and experience has a much louder voice than words. If we experience vicariously that eating vegetables and going for a run is pleasant and enjoyable and normal and no one makes a big deal out of it, it's easier for us to become comfortable with the idea. Incidentally, acculturation is largely how we've gotten ourselves in this mess in the first place. McDonald's markets itself to young children, so that you'll never remember a time before McDonald's. It markets itself as fun, as something that you've "gotta love," and most importantly, as something that is completely and utterly normal. They get in young and they get in on every food court and street corner. If you have never eaten McDonald's, people instantly think you're a freak. It's not like eating Kale (I'm still not entirely sure what that vegetable is thanks to my fluent McDonald'sese) where people think you're a bit interesting for it -- you're a full blown freak for not eating McDonald's. People know McDonald's is bad for them...but it's normal, and it's easy, it's normal, it's "fun," and it's normal.

Your suggested method involves making a loud voice. Loud voices, especially in our current culture, just offend people, except for when you're preaching to the choir. Normalising something happens very quietly, but it's also powerful. Sure, a loud voice can have a powerful impact at first, but people are very good at responding to loud voices by either tuning out the volume or shouting back just as loudly, which in turn creates cognitive dissonance, meaning that the more wrong you show people to be, the more convicted they become that they're right. Pay attention to political or religious arguments, and you'll see this play out in HD. I'm actually going to go right ahead and use that as an example of normalisation in action.

I'm not sure how much The Simpsons reflects common culture and how much it defines common culture, but back in its early days, everyone went to church. No one, except for a few mums, cared about God or church, but everyone went anyway. And it seems that general culture was about the same. In The Simpsons, no one goes to church anymore....and culture looks about the same. There wasn't really an uprising against church in The Simpsons, nor has there been a general uprising against church in general culture (well, general culture's pretty pissed off at the Roman Catholic Church, but the general attitude is not that all religion is evil) -- but absence of/from church is now normal, and going to church is like eating Kale (except not nearly as hip). Now, it's not a huge leap to get from uninterested presence to absence. To get people generally following a healthy lifestyle is a much bigger jump: from engaged presence to absence with junk food, and from absence or uninterested presence to engaged presence with healthy eating and exercise. But the process is still largely the same, just longer. Make the undesired behaviour abnormal (and not in a cool way), and it'll largely die out. There will still be a few adherents, but the norm will be to leave it alone. And make the desired behaviour normal (and not in a way that feels forced), and it'll largely become accepted.
 
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