Hello y'all,
M'lady and I went to Atlanta a couple of weeks ago to visit the amazing aquarium. Afterward, we had a couple of hours to kill, so we decided to visit The World of Coca-Cola® where we saw the following video:
Needless to say, we both thought this quasi-provocative video was slightly disturbing (the computer animated talking helicopter has nipple rings). I even entertained the possibility we were brainwashed or subjected to subliminal advertisements (unbeknownst to us, of course). In any case, the video made me think about the dark side of the well-being research this blog is about: it's undeniable that unhealthy behavior can reliably make us happy (in some cases)!
Thus, I found it funny that after we got back, I was perusing the Journal of Happiness Studies and I came across an article which seems to show that Taiwanese kids who eat fast food are fatter and happier than Taiwanese children who don't eat it. This is slightly surprising, given the fact that it's been shown food has a fleeting effect on your subjective well-being.
As always, confounding variables should be accounted for, but, for the sake of argument, let's suppose that there is a causal connection. If this is so, we might be forced to make a choice between 'objective' and 'subjective' aspects of well-being. The authors point out that we must be aware that an unintended consequence of fighting childhood obesity might be lower overall levels of happiness.
Even though I think we can teach children to choose healthy food, I doubt that we can ever ignore the allure of food which is so sweet, fat and fast. Thank you, evolution! In the age of sugar substitutes and oral contraceptives, do we really need to exercise discipline? When what feels good isn't good for us, we can use technology to bridge the gap between happiness and health. We need not exercise restraint. We can, in short, have our cake and eat it too.
Excelsior!
C.L.Sosis
P.S. Beverly is magnificent!
Technology seems to be the source of many hindrances to objective well-being as well as the provider of pseudo-solutions to these hindrances.
For most of human evolution, sweet and fatty foods were scarce and required a good deal of physical effort to obtain. People had to expend a lot of energy in order to access foods with a high energy content so ultimately there was more of a balance between amounts of energy consumed and spent. Today someone can simply drive to a restaurant or have food delivered right to their door. Perhaps if people were required to walk a couple of miles in order to get a cheeseburger the obesity epidemic wouldn't be such a problem.
It's also my understanding that artificial substitutes for fat and sugar don't trigger the same neurological mechanisms as do the genuine substances. They are, therefore, a poor solution to satisfy our cravings while maintaining objective well-being. Self discipline, in the form of moderation and exercise, is probably a better solution.
Of course, the issue of the time constraints that make fast food so tempting is a separate problem that is more of an issue with our culture than our technology inasmuch as the two can be separated. Eating and exercise have been marginalized as luxury activities that people should do in their increasingly scarce spare time. Overall levels of objective and subjective well-being would probably increase if people spent their time in ways that are more in line with their ancestors. More time would be spent engaging in mild to moderate levels of physical activity and less time would be spent working on expense reports, writing dissertations, playing video games, and commenting on blogs.
Posted by: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=5243445 | October 06, 2009 at 06:57 AM