Why change is hard
It is tempting to blame individuals for failing to live up to the science, but systemic barriers matter. Models of cognition such as Kahneman’ s effort theory, and a large body of psychological evidence, suggest people tend to seek the easiest path to a goal in order to minimise cognitive effort— pursuing it only if the reward is sufficient, even if it is not the right choice. One evolutionary hypothesis, foraging theory, explains this as a survival advantage for early primates. But the modern world is utterly different: we no longer scrounge for scraps of energy but are surrounded by an excess of everything, packaged in bright colours and tempting smells and delivered to our door. Most of us live in environments where the easiest choice is rarely the healthy or economical one— so it is little wonder that change is hard to make stick.
Changing the environment, not just the person
This is why Buettner’ s work is so important. Comprehensive approaches like his provide practical steps for better living, and challenge an overly deterministic view of NCDs. His team estimated that almost all Americans spend 90 % of their lives close to home, so they focused on improving parks, public policy and social involvement— making the healthy choice the easy choice, and calling for change at the policy level rather than placing the whole burden on individuals. The results speak for themselves: the Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo beach communities in California saw a 15 % drop in overweight and obese adults between 2010 and 2017.
Still, Buettner’ s is only one team, and the changes have reached around 75 American communities. Impressive— but against the global rise of NCDs, far more is needed. Buettner seems to know this: his team uses books, websites and a recent Netflix documentary to spread the lessons of the Blue Zones. It is a smart strategy in an age of growing distrust in healthcare and the difficulty of finding valid information on free social platforms. Communicating evidence-based health information in an understandable, attractive way will open up more options for facing illness at both the individual and systemic level— and, ideally, encourage people to act preventively rather than only responding to disease once it arrives.
References
01 American Journal of Health( 2014). Diets to Prevent Coronary Heart Disease
1957 – 2013. 02 Blue Zones LLC. bluezones. com.
03 BMC Public Health( 2020). Exercise / physical activity and health outcomes: an overview of Cochrane systematic reviews.
04 European Journal of Clinical Nutrition( 2016). Policy actions to improve population dietary patterns.
05 eClinicalMedicine( 2023). Life expectancy and years of potential life lost in people with mental disorders. 06 Buettner, D. & Skemp, S.( 2016). Blue Zones. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine.
07 Kahneman, D.( 1973). Attention and Effort; foraging theory, Stephens & Krebs( 1986).
CATALYST 13