Instead of appeals with tricks for a healthy lifestyle

Study: Using small tricks instead of appeals to healthy lifestyles

21/09/2012

Well-intentioned advice or impending health consequences seemingly do not help to change the diet, nor to do sports regularly. Although the sometimes serious consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle are well-known, comfort often gets in the way. British researchers have discovered how people can still be motivated to a healthy lifestyle.

Outsmart convenience and lead healthy lifestyles
According to Theresa Marteau of the University of Cambridge and her team, people change their behavior when it's easy for them. If the salad bar is located at the back of the room, many people are too far away and prefer sweet desserts that are close by. In everyday life, comfort and habit usually prevail, while reason must be at the back end.

As the researchers in the review article in specialist magazine „Science“ Report, advice and appeals for a healthy lifestyle help little. „These approaches are often ineffective, in line with the observation that human behavior is automated - influenced by environmental stimuli - reflected in actions that are largely unaccounted for by deliberate reflection“, Write Marteau and her team. It is more effective to place the salad bar nearby and the stairs within easy reach unlike the elevator. This leads to a change in lifestyle as advice and exhortations. The cause is in the nature of decision-making, as people would rarely decide on rational grounds but much more often on habit or convenience.

For example, switching off one of several elevators has led to more people taking the stairs. Similarly, the slower closing of the elevator doors. Through such interventions, the automated behavior can be changed. The researchers also report that people would have drunk less with tall, narrow glasses compared to wide glasses with the same volume. Also, the salad bar nearby was more attractive than the desserts further back.

Habits often prevented healthy lifestyles
Human action is determined daily by two types of decision-making. On the one hand, there are "rational reasons; on the other, there are habits or unconscious preferences on the basis of which decisions are made." Although the rational decision leads more quickly to the goal, the habitual action often outweighs, since it functions faster and less complicated, without further considerations. „You do not always have to think to find your way home“, the researchers write.

In this way, the behavior can be controlled and can also be applied in terms of health, for example, smoking cessation or lack of exercise. There is a constant conflict between what is really wanted, a healthy lifestyle, and immediate rewards such as laziness or even chocolate. "It does not help to appeal to the rational side", so the researchers. This has already shown the behavioral research. Much more effective is "to facilitate the external conditions, so that new healthy habits can emerge".

According to researchers, there are innumerable possibilities for this. This would make healthy products more appealing and better placed in the supermarket or canteen. Also, the architecture of office buildings can be chosen so that is stimulated in the breaks to more movement. In the field of health care, there should be fewer admonitions and create more conditions that provide subtle incentives for a healthy lifestyle. (Ag)

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