<p>I'm curious about how laypeople think about healthy lifestyle changes (like eating well, not smoking, exercising) that are scientifically known to help prevent and treat a number of diseases. People are notoriously bad about using such lifestyle changes for a variety of psychological reasons.</p>

<p>Could part of the problem be that they don't believe lifestyle changes are effective? Is there any literature on this? I did look around a bit myself, but did not find anything directly relevant.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-12-10T04:08:31.113Z
can you clarify the fist paragraph....but usually laziness combined whith who is doing it to begin with. as soon as the cool person it does it, they all follow...
Greg McNulty
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-12-11T05:17:59.537Z
What I meant was: I'd like to know if a possible barrier to people's using lifestyle changes is that they don't believe lifestyle changes to be effective. Does that help?
half-pass
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-16T15:10:18.580Z
This is my own theory and i'm not a professional. People often believe that frailty and mental decline come with age and that it is unavoidable. Furthermore, "good" marketing significantly influences people's desires. Marketing depicts unhealthy lifestyles as promoting happiness. Such as showing people drinking liquor and smiling and having fun. Regardless of their logical/rational knowledge, their belief is that those bad choices make them happy. The key: People don't know enough details, so they are **afraid** that good lifestyle choices will be a waste of time and make them unhappy.
Reed
<decision-making><health-psychology>
Do laypeople think lifestyle changes are effective at preventing and treating disease?
half-pass
# Do laypeople think lifestyle changes are effective at preventing and treating disease?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-12-10)

I'm curious about how laypeople think about healthy lifestyle changes (like eating well, not smoking, exercising) that are scientifically known to help prevent and treat a number of diseases. People are notoriously bad about using such lifestyle changes for a variety of psychological reasons.

Could part of the problem be that they don't believe lifestyle changes are effective? Is there any literature on this? I did look around a bit myself, but did not find anything directly relevant.

**Tags:** decision-making, health-psychology

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: can you clarify the fist paragraph....but usually laziness combined whith who is doing it to begin with. as soon as the cool person it does it, they all follow...  
> **username_0**: What I meant was: I'd like to know if a possible barrier to people's using lifestyle changes is that they don't believe lifestyle changes to be effective. Does that help?  
> **username_2**: This is my own theory and i'm not a professional. People often believe that frailty and mental decline come with age and that it is unavoidable. Furthermore, "good" marketing significantly influences people's desires. Marketing depicts unhealthy lifestyles as promoting happiness. Such as showing people drinking liquor and smiling and having fun. Regardless of their logical/rational knowledge, their belief is that those bad choices make them happy. The key: People don't know enough details, so they are **afraid** that good lifestyle choices will be a waste of time and make them unhappy.  

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