3 Hacks for Healthy Habits

If it’s one thing the world of nutrition has unfailingly demonstrated over the past few decades, it’s that the typical Western diet is not working.

A publication from the New England Journal of Medicine reported that 10% of the planet is now considered obese, and according to the CDC, 40% of U.S. adults and nearly 20% of U.S. children are now obese. And because of well established links between obesity and poor health, including cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders, and some cancers, the World Health Organization has labeled the problem as nothing short of an epidemic.

There are many causes. Some related to food policy. Others related to costs. Others still related to overconsumption of processed meats, sugar-laden beverages, and a lack of veggies. But for many, one of the major causes is also a behavioral one.

Many areas of research, as we’ll get into, demonstrate that many of us get stuck in bad habits, we routinely underestimate our caloric intake, and we often eat mindlessly.

Research from areas of behavioral economics and psychology has revealed several different tactics that may help ditch the idea of a quick fix and permanently switch towards a healthier lifestyle. Whether it’s easier to train, track, or cheat, these methods have all been proven to work.

Train Your Habits

Training yourself to adopt new habits can be tough. But BJ Fogg, a professor at Stanford University, has been demonstrating for many years the power of Tiny Habits.

The premise: Inserting new habits into your life is difficult, whatever the goal may be. Therefore, starting extremely small is a good place to start.

Habits develop, according to Fogg, when a motivation, an ability, and a trigger happen simultaneously. Motivation is straightforward. Most people looking to switch to a healthier diet want to switch to a healthier diet. He argues that focusing your efforts on modulating motivation are typically much less effective.

So what works better? Reducing the ability is one tactic. This is where Tiny Habits lives. Making the new habit so incredibly small as to feel almost useless is precisely the point.

For example, when deciding to begin exercising, don’t set the new habit as a 2-mile jog 3 times a week. Instead, just say you will lace up your running shoes. It might seem pointless, but he has shown over time that that leads to easier habit formation. After the easy habit sticks you will naturally increase the demand. My shoes are on now, maybe I’ll walk around the block. And so on.

There are two more caveats to his method to improve its effectiveness and staying power. First, reward yourself. After you perform your new habit, do whatever it takes to give yourself a momentary reward. Say to yourself, I’m awesome! Or maybe, do a little dance.

Second, try tying the new behavior to a previous one already established in your routine. For example, he cites brushing teeth as a natural trigger to help cue your new habit of flossing. Perhaps putting your dinner plate in the dishwasher might cue your new habit of putting on your running shoes.

Track Your Intake

For over three decades, studies have consistently found that tracking what you eat helps you lose weight and meet nutrition goals. Why does this work so well?

One suggested reason is that we simply do a poor job of estimating our dietary intake patterns. We routinely underestimate caloric consumption, we often don’t know what our meals are composed of nutritionally, and we (as we will touch on in a moment) often eat without realizing that we’re eating.

The degree of diet-tracking success is related to the frequency and longevity of tracking. In other words, those who tracked their dietary intake more often, and over a longer period of time, showed progressively better health outcomes.

A few jaded nutritionists have come to the conclusion that more knowledge doesn’t seem to work. The fact that most of us know that an apple is better than a candy bar, while progressively eating worse has led many to despair. However, knowledge may indeed still be power. However, certain knowledge may be more impactful than others.

The problem---as anyone who has tried tracking their diet before will tell you---is that tracking your dietary intake is painfully tedious and difficult to maintain over time. While this technique works, and some people can successfully stick to the habit, most must wait for easier diet-tracking solutions. But the simple act of discovering your actual dietary intake may be the trick to more mindful eating.

Cheat!

When all else fails, is it okay to trick your mind? Although I don’t want to place negatively connotated words into Dr. Brian Wansink’s mouth, I’d argue that he might agree with the language. Why?

Dr. Wansink’s research at the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University has shown some very interesting eating behaviors we mindlessly exhibit that he has termed, well, Mindless Eating. With it’s self-explanatory title, the concept is quite literally that we eat with thinking about it.

For example, the volume of food before us can sometimes affect how much we eat. A study using 14-day old, stale popcorn showed that moviegoers, despite agreeing that they did not enjoy the popcorn, still ate 38% more than those with fresh popcorn in smaller containers!

Another interesting study involved a bottomless soup bowl. The bowl of soup was cleverly designed to slowly refill as the participants ate the soup, indefinitely. Quite literally, all-you-can-eat. Once again, those with bottomless bowls ate 73% more!

One of Dr. Wansink’s solutions? Use a smaller plate! By using smaller plates, we tend to serve less and eat less without even thinking about it.

This type of cheating has also found its way into broader public health experiments, such as the buffet line in school cafeterias. Simply moving healthier options to eye-level can significantly increase its consumption over its less nutritious counterpart.

While this technique is difficult to apply everywhere, and top-down implementation must combat deeper ethical debates, cheating can be highly effective and worth using to meet your own dietary goals!

Conclusion

The pandemic of malnutrition will require a multifaceted approach to solve. But these are just a few of the behavior-minded approaches that will likely be part of the solution. Not every tactic will work for everyone. But if weight control is a personal issue, try one out! You never know which one may stick!