social welfare

Diet. Lose weight. Be happy.

This is the simplistic idea behind the almost $300 billion global weight-management industry. And the more this philosophy fails to achieve results, the larger the industry grows.

Why is it so hard to eat healthy food and avoid excess? After all, we all know the tremendous benefits of a healthy diet.

Many people have tried to explain this enigma in many different ways: habits, environment, self-control, stress, nutrient deficiency, self-image, the diet industry itself…

There’s a pattern here: an intense focus on ourselves and the ways we fall victim to external forces. Maybe it’s time for a paradigm shift…

Forget About Yourself: Do It for Others

Rule 2 of Jordan Petersen’s 12 Rules for Life is to “treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.”

This rule was inspired by remarkable psychological research that shows how we tend to take much better care of other people, or even our pets, than we take care of ourselves.

It’s ridiculous! How can we care more about our dogs than ourselves?

One explanation that carries an uncomfortable degree of truth is that, deep down, we don’t feel like we deserve our own care. We know all our deepest and darkest secrets, our pitiful insecurities, those thoroughly embarrassing thoughts and feelings in the depths of our being.

The more we neglect self-care, the worse this internal mess becomes and the less deserving we feel. Looking after others (including our pets) is much easier because this deep and dark stuff is hidden or non-existent.

After reading this chapter in Dr. Petersen’s book, I experienced one of those special lightbulb moments. It dawned on me that improving the well-being of those around me is an important driver behind the extremely healthy diet that makes sure I never get sick.

In the rest of this article, I want to share this motivation by clearly describing the hugely positive effect your healthy diet has on the world.

Address the World’s Worst Injustice

Life can be terribly unfair. In the rich world, issues like institutional racism and gender pay-gaps take the spotlight while we habitually ignore a much greater injustice: the vast inequality of opportunity within the human population as a whole.

Here’s a sobering stat for you: The obesity health burden and the cost of the extra calories we must produce to keep over 2 billion people overweight amounts to the combined income of the poorest half of the global population. Let that sink in: The top half spends as much on overeating (and its consequences) as the bottom half spends on their entire lives!

If you’re reading this, it means you’ve won the lottery of birth. Maintaining a healthy, mainly plant-based diet without unhealthy excess is an excellent way to help those who were not as lucky.

Like any other commodity, food prices work on supply and demand. When those born into affluence moderate their consumption, prices reduce, making it easier for those less fortunate to buy the food they need.

If you really want to earn your own respect, use some of the savings from buying less food (less meat in particular) to directly address the terrible injustice of inequality of opportunity. This charity is my favorite.

Combat Climate Change

Agriculture is responsible for a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. And well over half of these originate from animal products (mostly meat), despite delivering only 17% of global calories.

Cutting your food intake (and especially your meat consumption) is a great way to help the world combat climate change. In addition, this action will make a large contribution to addressing gross global inequality because the poor suffer disproportionately from climate change.

Mitigate Other Environmental Problems

As shown below, humanity’s three biggest breaches of planetary boundaries are phosphorus and nitrogen flows and genetic diversity. Agriculture plays a prime role in all three.

Phosphorus and nitrogen pollution originates mainly from industrial fertilizers (without which we simply cannot feed the world). The vast land areas used for agriculture, combined with widespread pesticide and herbicide use, threatens many species, reducing natural diversity.

You can help address all these grave environmental problems by adopting a healthy plant-dominated diet. Countless human and animal lives stand to benefit from your healthy eating habits.

Improve Animal Welfare

If the world had less than a billion people, we could all enjoy products from ethically sound free-range and pasture-raised animals. But we’re quickly heading to 10 billion, and, in this reality, factory farming is the only way to supply the world’s ravenous appetite for animal products.

Humans killing and eating animals is not the problem. That’s how nature works — the apex predator kills and eats animals lower in the food chain. The real problem is the miserable lives we force these animals to lead before they are killed.

One of the many salient points Yuval Noah Harari makes in Sapiens is that we can measure our progress as stewards of the Earth by the combined well-being of all sentient beings. By this measure, we’re doing an absolutely appalling job, mainly due to factory farming.

No, you don’t need to become a vegan. But please reduce your meat intake to a bare minimum so we can stop torturing animals on factory farms.

Strengthen Our Welfare Systems

Did you know that 90% of the gargantuan healthcare expenditure of the United States is due to chronic diseases? And the primary recommendations for reducing this terrible human and economic cost is the adoption of simple healthy lifestyle choices, such as a healthy diet.

Our poor diet choices are not only driving up society’s healthcare burden; it’s also eroding our ability to carry it. Unhealthy people simply cannot be as productive as healthy people (e.g., obesity is a strong predictor of long-term sick leave). In this way, poor diet choices shrink the tax base.

Thus, your healthy diet can make a great contribution to the social welfare systems that secure the livelihoods of your family and countrymen. Healthy eating habits reduce your likelihood of depleting these systems and increase your ability to support them.

Set a Healthy Example

Humans are social creatures. We’ll go to great lengths to fit into our peer groups, especially those we look up to. And it doesn’t matter so much what this peer group says; it matters more what they do.

Peer groups come in various sizes. For example, an obese parent indirectly communicates to their children, colleagues, social circle, and the broader community that unhealthy eating habits are OK.

Please be aware of the signals your diet choices are sending out, especially to those who look up to you. If you maintain a healthy diet, you significantly increase the chances that they will too.

A Picture on the Fridge

You don’t have to agree with all the arguments I made in the previous sections, but hopefully one or two of them struck a chord. Focus on those and internalize them into your value system.

Better yet, get on the internet and find a striking image that embodies the one that resonated most with you. Print out a big copy and stick it on your fridge door at eye level. Then, see what happens.

The aim of this picture is not to guilt-trip you into starving yourself — only to avoid unhealthy excesses (excess meat in particular). In fact, this picture should motivate you to give your body all the nutrients (and calories) it needs to create great value for society.

If you manage to reach the point where you can truly feel how your healthy diet benefits the lives of others, your eating habits automatically improve. Your valuation of yourself will soon follow suit, allowing you to accept that you thoroughly deserve the self-care provided by a healthy diet.

Once you reach this point, it’s mission accomplished: healthy eating habits for the remainder of your substantially longer and more fulfilling life 🙂