Knowing the health risks isn't enough to stop people who have bad eating habits. This is also the case for people with other bad habits or addictions such as smoking or drinking. As one example written about by Carol Crenna, over 1,500,000 people get a coronary bypass or angioplasty each year and this costs $60 billion. Doctors tell patients that to stop heart disease before it kills them they have to change their lifestyle. But two years after surgery, ninety percent haven't changed. People find it incredibly difficult to change.
Alan Deutschman is a doctor who wanted to investigate something aside from just giving the scary facts about bad habits to people. He describes a study done on 194 people who suffered from severely clogged arteries. These people underwent a program where they were given help in switching to a vegetarian diet and quitting smoking. They also participated in group discussions, meditation, yoga and exercise classes. After the year-long program they were on their own but it was found that three years later 77 percent were still sticking to the lifestyle changes and had halted or reversed their disease.
Alan Deutschman has written an interesting book about this called Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life
He says the way to successful lifestyle change is not by using facts, fear or force to change people but rather to help people change deep rooted patterns of how they think, feel and act.
