How to Talk to People Who Make Bad Health Decisions
It’s frustrating when your friend – or worse, a stranger on the Internet – makes rash health decisions. Maybe they smoke, or eat badly, or buy whatever Dr. Oz approves of. Maybe they refuse to vaccinate their children. Here’s how to contact them.
Distance is ok (but doesn’t count as help)
You can ask the smoker to go outside (or stop inviting them), or cancel dates with children who are not vaccinated. If someone’s bad health decisions can affect you, you have every right to protect yourself. And if you don’t want your social media feed to be full of infographics on how essential oils can cure all diseases, go ahead and tear apart (or, more diplomatically, hide ) the person who won’t be silent about it.
But don’t confuse distance with. Nobody says, “Hmm, this person removed me from his friends – I had better take stock of my shortcomings and fix them all.” They say, “What a moron. Good riddance”. Especially if a family member or close friend is making a bad decision, you need to find a way to support them without pushing them away. In the end, one day they may decide that they need help to get rid of bad habits.
Why Shame Doesn’t Work
“I’m not entirely sure that saying you’re an idiot is actually very helpful when you’re actually faced with something that you think is your own child’s life and death issue,” he said. social science correspondent for NPR in an interview. interview about anti-axers.
In fact, all sorts of health messages can backfire, especially if the person you’re trying to convince is part of a tight-knit group (as are many anti-vax and natural health people). Faced with criticism from what they perceive to be the mainstream could lead them to more emphatically reject mainstream recommendations and seek solace in their group’s echo chamber .
Recently, our friends at Gizmodo put forward the argument that the shame of the movement makes people avoid it. If this is true, you are playing a very long game. Smoking has been criticized for decades, but over 17 percent of Americans still smoke. This is really not your best tactic.
Why not? Forbes’ Tara Halle quotes David Ropik , former director of risk communications at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis:
“When group views are challenged, if we go against the group, it seems like a threat,” Ropeik said, noting that humans, like social animals, have evolved to rely on their social group for protection. “Rather, we are defending the group,” and in this case, the “group” is the other non-vaccinating parents.
Shame backfires even when the message is not directly targeted as an attack. In a study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , overweight women read an article in which overweight people were described as unwanted by employers, considering them “weak-willed.” Subsequently, compared to a control group who read another article, they felt more frustrated, had less control over their weight, and ate more snacks in the next round of the experiment. Experts from the Center for Food Policy and Obesity. Rudd at Yale agreed, writing in an in-depth review article : “[S] tigmatizing obese people threatens health, creates health imbalances and hinders effective efforts to tackle obesity.”
Harsh messages sometimes work, but it depends more on the person than the message. But here’s the thing: these messages already exist. You are not the first person to suggest that someone quit smoking, start exercising, or get your kids vaccinated. They heard the message, but it didn’t work.
What Works: Key Benefits
Once you stop being ashamed, the next logical tactic should be to correct the misinformation that led your friend to believe something harmful. Unfortunately this doesn’t work either.
This has been called the scarcity model because it assumes that they simply have some missing knowledge. You fill the gap, they become enlightened, the end of the story. But people adhere to their cherished beliefs. We have a confirmation bias – we remember and believe what is consistent with what we already understand, and reject the rest as erroneous or unimportant.
Public health experts are debating how best to communicate health messages to people, but one idea that seems to stand out is to articulate behavior change in terms of the benefits they offer . Think of it as the approach of Dr. Oz: sell them how their lives will improve if they take the leap.
For example, someone who quits smoking will immediately feel the benefits : within a few minutes, his blood pressure will drop; their lungs function better for several months. Proper nutrition and exercise improves heart health indicators as well as psychological factors such as self-esteem, even without losing weight . If you want to help friends or strangers, try to focus on the benefits.
Meanwhile, don’t jump to conclusions about a person’s motivation. For example, all opponents of vaccination are not alike, and while some of them are staunch opponents, many are on a continuum where they may have some concerns, which are currently being addressed by skipping or delaying shots. The ultimate goal of an anti-waxer is the same as that of any other parent: the health of their child. By compassionately helping them understand how vaccines help rather than harm, this goal is a much better tactic than shame or information overload.
Asking the person about their motivation can be a great way to approach a topic if you’re asking questions with respect. This approach has two advantages: you learn what problem they are actually trying to solve and why; and sometimes a person may realize that he needs to fill the gaps in his understanding – likethese anti-GMO activists who cannot explain what GMO is .
After all, this is their life
Respect is key, not only because it helps people trust you , but because this is their life, not yours . Here are some of the top tips from the American Cancer Society to help a friend quit smoking :
- Respect that the bummer is in charge. It’s their lifestyle change and their job, not yours.
- You ask the person if they want you to regularly, as they do ask. Ask how they are feeling, not just if they have quit smoking.
- Let the person know it’s okay to talk to you when they need to hear encouraging words.
Even someone who knows the facts and wants to change may not take the first steps right away. Getting rid of addiction (or even a bad habit) is a difficult and difficult task . If you’ve never been through this, you may not be aware of how much mental effort it takes; even if you’ve been there, it’s easy to forget.
Moreover, willpower is a limited resource . Fast food lovers might stay at McDonald’s again because they really didn’t have time to put together a healthy lunch, the know-how to make something tasty, or the foresight to go grocery shopping a few days ago. They spent their efforts on other things in their lives that required closer attention. If someone is going through a stressful time , they are less likely to make big lifestyle changes. They might just have to wait.
If they ask you for help, you can help them build systems to handle the decisions they need to make (for example, sharing recipes and time-saving tips with fast food lovers; distracting the smoker when they crave). You can also share your own story if you have an experience similar to theirs: “I myself had doubts about vaccines, but I ended up deciding to get them for my children, and here’s why.”
It is difficult to persuade someone, but this skill can be learned . No tactic is guaranteed to work, but by respecting and helping the other person, rather than shaming them, you have a better chance of convincing them to become a healthier person.