Fries or salad?

I found myself in a bit of a dilemma last week, when I had to choose between a salad and French fries for a side order at lunch. And as most people would, I chose the latter and later regretted stuffing myself.

Incentive based

Most of us wonder why we have such trouble moderating our cravings for the unhealthy stuff. Economics argues that our decisions are based on incentives. And there are, indeed, incentives to consume high-calorie food. For one, it's tastier, while healthy food often isn't. For another, there is a time lag between the pleasure and pain of having consumed high-calorie food. You enjoy a tasty, greasy meal now, but the guilt of having eaten it is likely to be felt in the distant future; for it takes a while for those calories to show up on our waistline. The instant gratification that we get from eating high-calorie food is, hence, far greater than the perceived negative effect on our health in the future.

Moreover, we are hard-wired optimists. We often think that high blood pressure or cholesterol is a problem that someone else will suffer from, not us. This irrational thinking further reduces perceived risk of having high-calorie food today.

And there is more. Our ancestors, the hunter-gatherers, required a high-calorie diet because food was difficult to obtain; and such a diet gave them energy till they found their next meal. We now live in a world where food is readily available, yet evolutionary psychology shows that we have whole-heartedly inherited the craving for high-calorie food from our ancestors!

We do realise that healthy food is good for our health. But we suffer from what economists call time inconsistency. Each day, our plan is to enjoy high-calorie food just this once but switch to healthier options from tomorrow. We unfortunately follow the same game plan the next day as well. With so many factors at play, it is small wonder that I chose fries over salad.

(The author is the founder of Navera Consulting. He can be reached at >enhancek@gmail.com )

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