Recently, I’ve been reading a lot about behavioral economics which revolves around the concept that people don’t always make rational decisions. When it comes to food choices, I feel that this holds to be especially true. If people know oreos and chicken nuggets are not good for them, why do they continue to eat these foods? We can argue that they lack the nutritional education, access to healthier alternatives, and/or the means to actually purchase higher-quality food. Despite these challenges, I feel I can offer a tiny solution.
While analyzing the neighborhood health comparison map available through epiquery, I quickly scanned the list to find my own neighborhood and instinctively compared it to the others. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one in the class who did this. And that’s when it hit me. What if people living in “high food risk” neighborhoods were given a “bill” that compared their household’s health statistics with that of another neighborhood. Would seeing that your family only eats fresh fruit twice a week while a family in the Upper East Side eats that same amount in one day make you implement any changes? Would seeing that your children weigh 20% more than their children have any effect on your shopping list? I’m willing to bet that it would.
I understand that this scenario is an oversimplification of a larger issue. But really, aren’t smaller solutions like this technically more viable?
