Daniel Kahneman was a psychologist and a Nobel Laureate whose research focused on judgment, decision-making, and behavioral economics. His work showcased how human thinking is often inherently fallible and how the presence of cognitive biases (errors in thinking leading to unfavorable consequences) is inevitable in our lives.

Two systems of thinking

Kahneman’s work is based on a foundation that differentiates two ways we think. The two systems of thinking he describes are System 1, which involves fast and instinctive thinking as a result of heuristics (learned mental shortcuts), and System 2, which orchestrates slow and critical thinking faculties of the mind.

Evolutionarily, both systems almost always served us well. But they also often made us prone to errors—which worked to our disadvantage.

System 1 helped us make faster decisions, necessary for quickly navigating and actively surviving the myriad of complex terrains (like escaping from the throes of a carnivore). But it also prevented us from noticing subtleties, which counterintuitively made us suffer many ill consequences.

On the other hand, System 2 helped us use our much-evolved “neo-cerebral" faculties of the brain to gauge nuance in challenging situations and practice better-informed decisions. But it also led to negative outcomes in the form of losing time and missing chances (like catching prey).

In today’s modern world, these systems of thinking have evolved and modified. But we still face the same errors as we ever did.

System 1 and biases

System 1 often dominates our lives and predisposes us to biases. A bias is our tendency to favor something or someone instead of other alternatives, based on some superficial or inaccurate traits. These errors can sometimes be less costly, but other times, they can completely lead us away from our goals.

For example, the ‘Representative Bias’ can make us form categories (many times, subconsciously) based on superficial characteristics or inaccurate details—or stereotypes. These might favor discrimination.

Example: Categorizing doctors as “lifesavers” may improve our trust in them, but it may also cloud our awareness that every medical intervention comes with a set of benefits and side effects. And ‘lifesaving’ might not be a superpower doctors possess, but rather a result of expert application of medical science. We saw the cost of this bias when the pandemic was active; it caused compromised patient care, burned-out healthcare professionals, harassed healthcare professionals, and even physician suicides.

Obesity and fallible systems

The obesity epidemic surrounds us today, in the twenty-first century, affecting a large portion of populations around the world. Rapid ‘modernizations’ have modified our environments and made them more complex than ever.

Our fight has shifted from undernutrition and malnutrition toward metabolic syndrome, overweight, obesity, non-communicable diseases, and hormonal problems. This shift has led to a larger food insecurity; most of us don’t have an optimal, balanced diet regularly. It has led to increasing prevalence, morbidity, and mortality from negative health outcomes—posing one of the most important public health concerns.

Medical science has long ago discovered that eliminating the “modifiable” risk factors—through behavior and lifestyle change—has been vital in prevention. Increasing physical activity, eating a diet rich in fruits and fibers, improving sleep quality, and restricting processed food (high in sugars and triglycerides) have proven helpful. Also, improving social circumstances (social, cultural, economic, and political determinants of health) has been beneficial. Catering to these is radical, and it will improve the extent to which health programs succeed (example: NPNCD in India).

Human behavior is nuanced and complex. Help from deeper sciences and holistic research is imminent. It will bring about real change on a large scale.

Slow thinking to avert obesity

Can we then say that, in the flux of our daily living, applying skills to enact (Kahneman’s) System 2 will impact change? Sooner and faster?

How can we make it easier and more exciting for people to prioritize healthy habits (balanced diet, adequate sleep, moderate exercise, and stress regulation)?

Won’t it assuredly lower the rates of obesity and non-communicable diseases?

Health behavior change approaches for fighting obesity

Behavior change strategies should be robustly considered while devising policies and programs. It is imminent that we do!

In an LMIC like India, at least, the “prevention” approach has been employed robustly—in the form of applying a myriad of preventive measures—by including them in the interventions. And we can see that including some of the successful research findings has been bluntly added to the national programs...

It has caused slow and mediocre success!

It appears that the efforts fade away before actually reaching the people in need.

It is important to ask: What behavior change approaches are we considering? Are we considering any? Have we used authentic research? Did it consider diversity and factor in the representativeness? The vital discoveries from the fields of social sciences, community-based participatory research, health education, and other relevant areas?

Implications: these approaches surely have the power to change external factors, catalyzing change, as well as employ people to use System 2 thinking while they make lifestyle-related decisions.