Unhealthy Habits Aren't The Problem, They're Coping Mechanisms

We have never had as much information about how to stay healthy as we do today. Whatever your preferred lens, medical, integrative, alternative, even quantum, we know a huge amount about what supports human health. So why are we getting worse at doing it? The rocketing rate of non-communicable disease is showing us just how much we are failing.

When people come to me with a health issue or weight challenge, I recognise that the health issue itself often isn't the problem, it's a symptom. This sounds like a subtle shift in perspective, but it has a huge impact on how we go about addressing it.

Similarly, those symptoms may have been caused, at least in part, by unhealthy habits, but again, unless I understand the real story, I'm not able to truly help someone recover their health. Talk to people for long enough and you'll often discover that the unhealthy habits aren't really the problem either. They're coping mechanisms.

Again, a subtle shift in perspective, but the approach is night and day when you have this depth of insight.

Now transpose this onto society. Take a look around. How many people do you see totally stressed out of their minds, under pressure, struggling to make ends meet, or simply trying to find enough hours in the day?

The real problem, I believe, is that we've created systems and environments increasingly misaligned with the proper functioning of the human psyche. Stress, fear and anxiety have become normalised, ranging from a constant background hum to complete debilitation.

Sugar, alcohol, smoking, excessive scrolling, inactivity, staying up too late. These aren't always simply "bad choices". Very often they're coping mechanisms, providing a momentary hit of relief, reward, escape or energy.

Until we start seeing the real problem, information-led health campaigns will continue to fall short. Because the problem isn't necessarily a lack of information, willingness or motivation. It's often chronic stress driving choices that provide temporary relief.

Unfortunately, we've also built environments in which unhealthy behaviour is frequently the path of least resistance. Try finding a genuinely healthy meal to grab at your local train station.

Highly palatable, convenient food is cheap, widely available and relentlessly marketed. Screens provide instant entertainment and escape. Everything has been designed to remove friction and deliver reward. Meanwhile, telling a financially stretched, time-poor parent to cook healthy meals from scratch isn't really behaviour-change policy.

I increasingly think stress is the missing organising concept.

When people are chronically overloaded, behaviour changes. We naturally gravitate towards things that reduce immediate friction or provide immediate reward: palatable food, scrolling, entertainment, alcohol, convenience, inactivity, even staying up too late to reclaim some personal time.

The problem is that those behaviours can then undermine sleep, metabolic health, mood and energy, making healthier behaviours even harder the following day. The coping mechanism starts feeding the very problem it was helping us cope with.

For many people, food, screens and convenience aren't simply unhealthy choices. They've become self-regulation tools.

Yet much of preventative health continues to treat the problem as one of information or individual choice.

Eat better. Move more. Sleep more. Drink less. Stop smoking.

None of that advice is wrong. But it assumes the individual is operating in a relatively neutral environment and simply needs enough knowledge or motivation to make the right choice.

They aren't.

There is another layer to this. Commercial systems have become extraordinarily sophisticated at understanding human behaviour. Food, gaming, social media, streaming, retail and advertising use personalisation, convenience, reward, identity, emotional association and behavioural science to influence our choices continuously.

Public health is competing for the same human being, often with information. The contest isn't remotely symmetrical.

Broadly speaking, the NCD crisis is no longer predominantly a knowledge problem, it’s an environment, stress and behaviour-design problem. And we have to realise that we cannot sustainably remove a behaviour without truly understanding the job it is doing.

If we take this thinking right back to childhood, prevention starts to look very different. It's not simply about teaching children that broccoli is healthier than biscuits. It's about helping children develop healthy ways to regulate themselves, experience reward, nourish themselves, move, rest and recover, before less healthy coping mechanisms become deeply embedded.

The next evolution of preventative health isn't simply telling people how to live healthier lives, it's creating lives they don't constantly need to escape from.

About the author

Dr Laura Holland is an advisor in preventative health and human capability, with a background in economics, nutrition and integrative medicine. Through BeU, she works privately with individuals, advises organisations, and writes about the future of health, behaviour and human flourishing