Is It Time To Abandon The Notion Of Personal Choice In Dietary Counseling?



Over the next little while, I will be taking a few days off and so I will be reposting some of my favourite past posts. The following article was first posted on Aug 10, 2011:

Traditionally, dietary counseling has focused largely on client education and prescriptive approaches to promoting better ‘choices’.

Based on the limited success that such approaches have had on changing long-term dietary habits, a rather provocative article by Bradley Applehaus and colleagues from the Rush University Medical Centre, Chicago, Il, published in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, argues that it is perhaps now time to discard the notion of ‘choice’ in favor of a strategy based on a deeper understanding of the complex interaction between neurobehavioural processes and environmental determinants of overeating.

As the authors discuss, both counselors and clients frequently attribute obesity largely to poor ‘personal choices’ and studies have shown that dietitians rank ‘lack of willpower’ as far more important to the development of obesity than genetic or other biological factors. This is not only contrary to our current understanding of the complex neurobiology of ingestive behaviour but also only serves to stigmatise and frustrate patients, who in turn blame their own ‘failures’ on lack of motivation or personal ‘failings’.

“The term personal choice implies that human behavior derives from conscious, volitional decisions, and connotes that human beings have free will to decide between alternative courses of action independent of biological and environmental forces. An implication of this definition of personal choice is that individuals can be considered causally, financially, and morally responsible for their behavior”

“In contrast to the notion of personal choice, some argue that human behavior is explained by neurobiological processes and their interaction with environmental stimuli. Supporting this deterministic model of personal choice are studies demonstrating that future actions can be predicted by brain activation patterns up to 10 seconds before individuals become aware of having made a decision, behavior is strongly influenced by processes outside of conscious awareness, and individuals can be led to believe that they have caused actions outside of their control.”

Thus, the authors propose that rather than making adoption of a ‘healthy’ diet a matter of choice, dietetic practitioners may better serve their clients by basing their counseling strategies on the emerging understanding of neurobehavioural drivers of eating behaviours, particularly, on the issues of food reward, inhibitory control, and time discounting.

Whereas the concept of ‘food reward’ involving the brain’s complex mesolimbic reward circuitry (as in addictions) is readily evident, as is the complex neurobiology of the prefrontal cortex that determines motivation, impulsivity and inhibitory self-regulation, time discounting refers to the increased value of immediate (short-term) rewards compared to deferred (long-term) benefits routinely demonstrated in psychological testing and deeply ingrained in human behaviour.

Recognising and fully acknowledging how the brain’s neural circuitry that underlies these behaviours interacts with (and is thus ultimately responsive to) environmental situations and cues can perhaps provide a far more realistic and effective counseling strategy.

In their paper, the authors provide several specific examples of how such an approach may work.

For e.g., the tendency for the brain’s reward circuitry to drive the intake of highly palatable foods can be thwarted by eliminating such foods from the personal foodscape and avoiding temptation and exposure to such foods by sticking to grocery lists or online grocery shopping.

Similarly, inhibitory control can be made easier by avoiding situations that challenge (e.g. buffets) or weaken (e.g. stress) inhibitory control.

The tendency to discount time can be countered by focussing on short-term (immediate) rather than long-term (health) goals.

Many of these strategies may seem familiar to present recommendations, however, the context and manner in which these strategies are presented to and discussed with the client would be vastly different.

Thus, rather than making these behaviours a matter of ‘personal choice’ the counseling goal would be to have clients fully understand how their own genetic predispostiion and neurobiology drives them to these behaviours and how they have to adopt these ‘unnatural’ and ‘difficult’ strategies to overcome their ‘nature’.

As the authors point out:

“the model explains eating behaviors that promote obesity without invoking character flaws (eg, lack of willpower). By emphasizing genetically-influenced neurobiological processes that confer vulnerability to overeating in a toxic food environment, the model enables dietetics practitioners to more effectively address obesity without promoting stigma.”

In terms of the counseling process, the authors suggest that this approach

“…acknowledges that patients are working against potent genetic vulnerabilities and a toxic food environment, and normalizes patients’ (and dietetics practitioners’) frustration with failed attempts at weight control.”

and that

“…patients can better control their weight through strategies focused on the interaction between the brain and the environment. For the majority of dietetics practitioners, this second message constitutes a shift in strategy from urging patients to make the tough choices required for weight control to helping patients minimize the number of tough choices they encounter.”

While it remains to be seen whether or not such a shift in strategy will indeed produce better outcomes, I do appreciate the fact that this paper makes a serious attempt at recognising just how effectively biology drives eating behaviour and that the simplistic concepts of ‘personal choice’ and ‘will power’ are clearly not the most effective strategies to counter the toxic food environment that most of us are exposed to.

To use an analogy that I have used before, recognising that someone has a hypersensitive bronchial system that predisposes them to asthma should lead them to avoiding and eliminating air-borne pollutants in their immediate environment rather than simply trying to breathe less.

AMS
Edmonton, Alberta

Hat tip to Annette for pointing me to this article.

Appelhans BM, Whited MC, Schneider KL, & Pagoto SL (2011). Time to abandon the notion of personal choice in dietary counseling for obesity? Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 111 (8), 1130-6 PMID: 21802557