Making healthy decisions can be a real challenge, especially when it comes to making dietary decisions. The pieces to this challenge are plenty, including the sheer amount of information out there, much of which is riddled with poor quality science (or no attempt to pull in any science at all).
To overcome this challenge, I have a process for making health-conscious decisions for your own self – one that enables you to take in information in manageable pieces, all the while basing your decisions on your best understanding of what is healthiest for your own body.
It’s a process that balances science and intuition, because even though I would love to be able to tell you how to base your decisions completely on science, the fact is that the science just isn’t there yet.
To explain this point further, I have written a post to help you begin your journey to better health with one important understanding. If you can understand this key point, then you will have successfully accomplished an important step 1 on your journey to better health.
My process for becoming a healthier individual begins with this understanding: that all health sciences (nutrition, physiology, biochemistry, exercise physiology, etc.) involve the study of complex systems
(note, we’ll focus on nutrition as an example for this post but we could apply this to other lifestyle factors – e.g., exercise).
In a complex system, numerous variables interact such that the output of that system is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, the functioning of the whole that is created from each component interacting with other components of the network contains more information than can be understood by breaking that system down into individual parts.
I know, that’s a bit of technical jargon, but it’s important to understand that when looking at a complex system (a food, for example), the different components that make up that food (macronutrients, micronutrients, fiber, etc.) interact with each other and with the body such that any attempt to isolate just one piece (e.g., a protein, sugar, or fat) so that we can understand how it impacts the body… any time we do this we will lose information about the whole that is the entire food.
This is important when attempting to make health-conscious decisions based on science. It includes attempts to interpret data from studies that examine individual pieces of a system, as well as for using this information to make “science-based” decisions for a particular individual.
For example, a particular study could examine the relationship between a specific nutrient (e.g., saturated fat) and poor health outcomes (e.g., the progression of cardiovascular disease).
As another example, a particular study could examine the effects of a dietary intervention (e.g., decreasing saturated fat intake) on one group of people (e.g., overweight, metabolically unhealthy males in their 40s).
However, when it comes to making nutritional claims and advising individuals on what to eat, there is a significant gap between that small finding involving one nutrient and one group of people and whether a particular individual should actually eat more or less of that nutrient.
Note: for more on understanding complex systems, watch this 13-minute video
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Unfortunately, this level of complexity is not the way that nutrition is studied and taught to the public. Through the traditional reductionist framework, we attempt to understand how individual pieces of a complex system play a role in pathways of good vs. poor health, then advise the population to follow certain dietary advice (eat more of this and less of that) based on these isolated pieces.
But, once again, we must understand that nutrition is a complex science, and any time we break down a system into pieces in an attempt to understand mechanisms and pathways involved in health vs. disease, we lose information about the whole picture.
At this point in time, we do not have the data to be able to make predictions about how a specific intervention (particularly those that are dietary) will impact all aspects of health for each individual.
Perhaps in the future with enough data, the ability to collect information from an individual, and machine learning, we’ll get there.
But at this point in time, what we have is a solid understanding of what types of foods support the general health of the population, along with what types of foods tend to drive the progression of poor health and disease when eaten frequently.
What we also have is a mountain of data regarding how specific foods and nutrients are involved in pathways of good vs. poor health. From this data, we can begin to piece together ideas about how specific nutrients may drive (or prevent the progression of) disease.
However, when it comes to making conclusive statements and recommendations about what to eat to prevent disease – and to apply it broadly to specific individuals – the scientific process has yet to fully unfold in the nutrition and health spheres. The point remains that you are a unique human being and the foods that best support your own health will not necessarily be the foods that all others would best be eating. You may fit a specific popular diet mold, or perhaps the effort to align with a specific diet plan is unhealthy for you.
Given this understanding of the complexity of the problem at hand, we are left with a challenging question: how do we decide how to make healthier decisions for our own bodies?
Fortunately, we have options:
- Find an expert that can guide us through our own health challenges
- This is a great option for some people. There are, after all, many health professionals who understand the complexity of the problem and are capable of guiding an individual to better health.
- Problem – there are too many people and too few qualified health experts
- Problem – quality healthcare can be expensive or not accessible for some
- This is a great option for some people. There are, after all, many health professionals who understand the complexity of the problem and are capable of guiding an individual to better health.
- Examine the science ourselves
- This can be a useful path forward for a lot of individuals. Information is fairly easy to access these days, and if you have the time and skill, you can read, for yourself, about what is truly healthy or not healthy and apply it to your own experience.
- This has the obvious problems:
- We are all busy people. How can we find the time for this?
- There is just so much information out there – much of it loaded with bullshit – so it becomes difficult to tell what is valid science and what is all mixed up in marketing tactics
- As explained above, health sciences are complex. It’s easy to forget this, to think we have found the right answer, and to try out a particular intervention while forgetting that any one intervention can only account for part of the entire picture.
- This has the obvious problems:
- This can be a useful path forward for a lot of individuals. Information is fairly easy to access these days, and if you have the time and skill, you can read, for yourself, about what is truly healthy or not healthy and apply it to your own experience.
Now, I am not here to shut down either of the above options.
If you have access to healthcare with qualified professionals that will work to understand and treat your specific health problems, by all means, go embrace it!
If you want to dive into the research yourself and become your own science expert, by all means, go dive in.
But what about addressing this problem at large? How do we help a population that is filled with unhealthy individuals become healthier?
Regardless of whether or not you have expert assistance on your health journey, it is valuable to understand how you can craft a healthy diet that best supports your own body and lifestyle with the following systems-based approach.
A Systems Approach to Addressing Poor Health
Up above, we see that Step 1 for becoming a healthier individual is to understand the type of challenge we are facing.
This challenge is one of great complexity, and overcoming it will not be accomplished by traditional methods that use reductionist science that oversimplifies all that is at play.
We have to understand this point: you will never solve all of your health problems with a single piece of information nor a single purchase. Moreover, even as you begin to build up data to support an idea (I should eat less X because it causes Y), I can pretty much guarantee that there is data out there to counter that statement.
I know, you are consistently told otherwise by a host of powerful marketing techniques:
- just eat this science-based diet and you are guaranteed to lose weight
- just follow this exercise plan, in exactly this way, and you are guaranteed to achieve good results
But I am here to let you know that none of these solutions will ever be “the solution” that will solve your health problems – because you are a unique individual with your own DNA, life history, and current life circumstances.
No cookie-cutter diet, exercise, or lifestyle plan is going to be the thing that solves your health problems for good.
Can some of them help you? Absolutely, there are plenty of helpful goods and services out there.
Are many of them not helpful? Again, absolutely.
But worst of all is this:
That so many of the goods and services out there will actually cause you harm – whether it’s mentally, physically, or financially.
If nothing else, I want to help you avoid this.
You are here because you need help getting healthier. The last thing I want is for you to spend your time and money on something that will cause you harm.
That’s why I am here to help you out with something different.
A Systems Approach to Overcoming Poor Health
I want to help you become healthier. This involves:
- Understanding how to avoid that which will make you unhealthier
- Understanding what could actually make you healthier
- Getting yourself to actually take the steps that lead away from #1 and towards #2
Understanding and action – both pieces are essential.
Given this understanding of my own, I got to work coming up with a path forward that any individual could embrace that would enable him or her own self to make forward progress.
And that’s what I have for you.
A path forward.
- Away from the noise and bullshit that will make you unhealthier.
- Forward towards a life of better health.
It takes into account (to a significant degree) the data. Because we do already know so much and it is important that we use this information. This means that the path forward is grounded in science and that, whenever we are able, we will look to science for guidance.
It also takes into account the unknown – that which science and technology have yet to make accessible for all individuals.
I encourage you to take note of the importance of this second piece. As much as I would love to stand here and give you something that is 100% science-based and will always be able to predict the best outcomes for you, this is simply not possible at this point in time.
The science is too complex and we have limited technology. There are answers that we have yet to uncover, and until the science gets there, we have to look at different options.
That being said, as we move into the unknown, we need to do so cautiously. Your safety is of utmost importance, and we don’t want to blindly jump into anything that could cause harm.
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Now that you’ve accomplished Step 1 – this understanding of the challenge at hand – I invite you to continue to move forward.
Here’s how:
- A blog post in which I have distilled the process down to something that is readable in a few minutes
- An invitation to join my platform (Newsletter anf Facebook Group) so that can continue to guide you forward on your own Journey to Better Health.
