Health and fitness are best driven by personal choices, not government programs, according to a researcher at the Centre for Independent Studies.
“Long-term fitness is a function of personal choice,” said Helen Andrews, author of An Ounce of Prevention? A Toolkit for Evaluating Preventive Health Measures. “Without that personal commitment, government programs can only achieve the most marginal effects. For one thing, government just isn’t very good at forcing people to get fit.”
“Psychologically, a sense of personal agency is crucial to weight loss. A study earlier this year found that people who are told that obesity is a disease are less likely to choose healthy food options than people who are told that their weight is something they can control.”
Andrews’ research report outlines the inherent difficulties in government attempting to change people’s health behaviours, assesses the costs and benefits, and provides a ‘toolkit’ for evaluating the likely impact of preventive health programs.
“Simplicity is essential to any successful campaign, but a problem like obesity is just too complicated for a simple slogan. There is no single culprit that can be demonized as the one-and-only cause of obesity—not sugar, not fat, not carbs.”
“Oversimplification can backfire. One example is the healthy eating/obesity preventive strategy telling Australians to ‘Go for 2 & 5’ daily serves of fruits and vegetables: Obese Australians are actually more likely to meet the ‘2 & 5’ recommendation than those of normal weight.”
“It’s not that people don’t know any better, either. Approximately 58% of doctors in Australia are overweight or obese — and if any single group should be familiar with the causes and consequences of obesity, it would be doctors.”
Other strategies like soft-drink taxes are vulnerable to substitution effects — when soft drink becomes more expensive, many consumers instead drink juices that are just as sugary, Andrews found.
Her research also outlined problems with a range of other programs, including bariatric surgery and certain types of cancer screening. “Bariatric surgery is among the most effective interventions but it does not always achieve long-term savings,” Andrews said. “Poor targeting is also a problem for cancer screenings, where there can be negative impacts such as false positives and over-diagnosis.”
Helen Andrews is a Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.