Healthy Environment versus Personal Choice
The conversation around obesity is changing. Increasingly, I see blame laid squarely at obesogenic environments; surroundings, systems, and culture that enable obesity, and makes weight loss harder.
Yes, many people live in healthy food deserts, or fast food swamps; or simply don’t have the ability to buy fresh healthy food. Poverty causes all sorts of #health issues, including obesity. But for many people living with obesity, poverty is not the problem. Many live in a world where food is abundant, cheap, quick, and ubiquitous.
For those of us lucky enough to be able to shop in grocery stores full of choice, it is other aspects of our society that mean we are encouraged to eat foods that don’t serve us well, eat when we’re not hungry, and eat at times of day to suit other people, to suit society, to suit employers, and so on.
It is absolutely right that we collectively recognise obesity is not caused by people choosing to eat too much unhealthy food, by a lack of willpower, or a disregard for one’s health. People do not gain weight simply because of ‘personal choice’. Obesity is a complex condition; there can be many diverse contributing factors; and weight gain itself can cause metabolic issues that in turn reduce satiety, cause ‘food noise’, and exacerbate weightgain.
Understanding the conscious and subconscious choices we make, and why we make them, is key to developing our own individual agency around food. Understanding ourselves, (including how we respond to our environment) is key to enabling any sort of change.
In 2014, my environment meant I had access to an abundance of delicious food; some of it healthy, some of it not. My psychology meant I overate to satisfy emotional needs. My BMI was 38. Today, my environment means I have access to an abundance of delicious food; some of it healthy, some of it not. My psychology means I eat to nourish my body. My BMI is 22.
I lost ~100 pounds by changing my eating psychology, not my environment. I had to learn what impact my environment had on how I ate, I had to understand my response to it, and change my response to it. Mindful eating, and years of unravelling and rewiring my emotional responses to food and my environment, was the key.
I am pleased that many health organisations are championing considerate patient-centric language in obesity care. Of course. But personal choice and agency matters. In fixing food systems, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are all amazing individuals who have the capacity to understand ourselves better, to learn about the role of our environment, to adapt, to respond to it, to take back control, and yes: to exercise personal choice.
Leaning too heavily on environmental blame can leave people feeling powerless. The “it’s not your fault, it's UPF, or takeaways, or deliveries, or lunch breaks, or diet culture” messages can easily be taken as “there’s nothing you can do.” And that’s simply not true. It can be demoralising and disempowering to hear you have no control, and your weight is the fault of such vague constructs as “the food industry”, or better yet, ”capitalism”.
For a long time, Eatiful has been championing the role of psychology in obesity. Understanding that motivations to eat go beyond the influence of the immediate environment (however obesogenic it might be). Eating choices we all make are influenced by our immediate environment, but also by our whole lifetime’s worth of conditioning, experiences and influences. And at Eatiful, we help people unpick that conditioning and learn to understand and nurture their bodies and minds.
Importantly, we never demonise food; Eatiful has no food rules. Yet without ever telling people what to eat, our users are losing weight simply by better understanding their eating and food psychology, by better understanding their bodies and minds, by taking back control and by thoroughly enjoying their newfound feeling of personal choice.
