For reasons explained previously, I’m not really that keen on the whole blogging thing. Apart from anything else, almost everything one wants to say will eventually be said by someone else, so what’s the point?
Here is today’s example, it’s from Joe Dunckley, and concerns the connection between lack of physical actrivity and the “obesity crisis”. It’s from what, he warns us, is a rather sciencey and not terribly finished piece – and yes, it is slightly confusing to read unless you’ve already read a bit about the debate he references. Nonetheless it contains a point with which I am in total agreement. Joe’s post is aligned with a central thrust of psychobikeology: stop thinking about individuals (oh it’s so terrible the way people behave! Let’s talk to them about it!), start thinking about systems (people behave the way they do for complicated reasons, most of which are related to external circumstances. How might we change those circumstances?).
(The full post is here)
“[Garry Taubes commenting on the obesity crisis, in the journal Nature] is right to treat those who “blame individuals for not following [healthy eating] advice properly” with contempt. But not because the advice is wrong. Because any “advice” — right or wrong — is going to be useless. This is not a problem that individuals have created for themselves, and it’s not a problem that individuals can be “advised” to solve for themselves. This is a problem of the environment that we live in: the types of food that are available to us, and the opportunities for an active healthy lifestyle that have been taken away from us. […]
“[…] obesity, is a process of physiology. But it’s a problem of environment. […] you can’t solve a problem environment with advice alone. Bad lifestyle choices are not an individual failing. Good lifestyle choices need an infrastructure to support them.”
Just to expand a little here, strategically, I think it’s best to avoid claiming “answer to the obesity crisis” as one of the benefits of a public policy which takes walking and cycling seriously enough to do what is necessary (just as I think it’s strategically best to avoid banging on about carbon emissions too much). This is because it is a huge oversimplification – and therefore becomes a source of yet more contrarian ‘debate’ and dithering. I think it’s better to point out how great physical activity is in health terms (and how effortless it feels when that activity just happens as part of everyday getting around) and skirt around the whole psychological rabbit-hole of dieting-and-weight-loss.
Psychobikeology 