By Jennifer Whitmire, MS, MEd, MH, CHES, NEP

We all know what we “should” do. Who hasn’t been told to eat their vegetables their entire life, or go to bed, or go outside and play? When it comes to food, most people already know way more about healthy eating than they think they do.

If I asked a room full of people whether vegetables are healthier than doughnuts, nearly everyone would answer correctly. (Some are just smartasses).

If I asked whether water is generally a better choice than soda, most people would know the answer.

If I asked whether sleep, movement, and stress management affect health, who would argue?

There’s no lack of information.

In fact, we live in a time when information is almost impossible to avoid.

Nutrition advice is given by everyone! It appears on social media, television, podcasts, blogs, magazines, and news headlines. Every week there’s a new study, a new expert, a new diet, or a new supplement promising to solve our health and fat concerns.

Even highly respected institutions like the Harvard School of Public Health continue to publish evidence-based nutrition guidance, adding to an already enormous volume of health information available to the public.

With more access to health information than any generation before us, chronic disease is still on the rise. Obesity rates have been climbing for 40 years (Isn’t that interesting?  Why wasn’t it an issue before 40 years ago?). Type 2 diabetes rates continue to go up. Autoimmune diseases continue to increase, not only the rate of autoimmune but the types of autoimmune. Anxiety, stress, and burnout affect people everywhere I look.

That raises another interesting question. If we just need more or better information, wouldn’t we be healthier by now?

The Information Trap

For many years, I thought that education was the primary answer.

As an educator and career student, I’m someone who loves learning. So of course, more education seemed logical. If people understood nutrition, they would make better, healthier choices. If they understood blood sugar, inflammation, gut health, and chronic disease, better habits would naturally follow.

What I found was that knowing and doing (knowledge and behavior) are not the same thing.

Most people do not need more information. They struggle, because they are human. We are programmed to look for the easy way out. When we have to work harder, we get tired, we become overwhelmed, and we experience stress.

We’re caring for aging parents, raising children, managing careers, and handling our own health challenges all while trying to keep up with the demands of everyday life. In fact, I recently wrote about this in The Healthiest Thing I Ever Did Was Stop Looking for the Perfect Diet. One of the lessons I learned was that the constant search for the “perfect” answer distracts us from the habits that consistently support health.

At the end of the day, the healthiest choice is not always the easiest choice.

The Environment Almost Always Wins

One concept that repeatedly appears in behavior change research is the influence of our environment. Most of us like to believe our decisions are based on willpower and discipline, but the reality is much more complicated. Human beings are strongly influenced by what is available, convenient, visible, affordable, and socially acceptable.

If highly processed convenience foods are easy to reach at home, at work, in restaurants, and at every checkout counter, people are more likely to eat them. On the other hand, if healthier options require planning, prep time, shopping at the right store, cooking, and decision-making, they become much more difficult to choose, especially when we’re busy or stressed.

This is why I spend so much time teaching practical skills instead of just sharing nutrition information. Knowing that vegetables are healthy is important, but knowledge doesn’t always lead to changes in behavior. 

Learning how to shop for vegetables, prepare them in ways that taste good, keep them ready and easy to use, and use them in meals throughout the week is much more valuable. In my experience, lasting change occurs when healthy choices become easier to make.

The Motivation Myth

We give motivation too much credit.

People assume that those who eat well, exercise regularly, or maintain healthy habits have somehow mastered motivation. They imagine these people wake up every day excited to make healthy meals, exercise, and make those perfect choices.

That has not been my experience.

Motivation comes and goes for everyone. Some days we feel focused and energized. Other days we are tired, stressed, busy, or dealing with life. The difference is that successful people have created routines that allow them to continue even when motivation is low.

They have meals they know how to prepare without much thought or planning. They keep healthy foods stocked and ready. They have developed habits that require less decision-making and less effort. Those who are successful have learned how to make healthy choices more convenient.

The longer I work in health education, the more convinced I become that lasting change is less about willpower and more about creating a lifestyle that supports the behaviors you want to maintain.

What I Have Learned From My Own Journey

When I was first diagnosed with Graves’ disease, I became determined to understand everything I could about health, nutrition, and autoimmune disease. Like many people facing a new diagnosis, I wanted answers. I wanted to know what foods to eat, what foods to avoid, which supplements might help, and what lifestyle changes were necessary to “fix” me.

Remember, I wanted to prove my doctors wrong. I had been told I would need meds for the rest of my life, and I was not ready to accept that without asking a lot of questions and exploring every option available.

Part of that journey included changing the way I ate, which was more challenging than just learning what foods were considered healthy. As I share in Why Giving Up Dairy Was Harder Than Giving Up Meat, understanding what to do and actually changing habits are two very different things.

During those first few years, I learned an enormous amount. I read books, attended conferences, completed additional training, and immersed myself in science. That education was valuable and necessary for much of the work I do today.

What surprised me was that the changes that lasted were the result of learning how to turn that information into everyday life. I learned how to prepare foods that I loved and enjoyed eating. I learned how to choose healthier foods and have them right at hand, so they were easy to choose. I learned how to optimize my busy schedules, travel, holidays, and stressful periods without feeling as though I was constantly starting over.

Over time, I realized that sustainable habits require less willpower than most people think. They require systems, routines, and an environment that supports the behaviors you are trying to practice. Healthy choices became much less about discipline and much more about creating a lifestyle that made those choices easier.

The Question I Ask Today

When someone tells me they know what they should be doing but can’t do it consistently, I encourage them to stop seeking more information, no more classes, and no more testing.

Instead, I find myself asking different questions.

• What is getting in the way?
• What makes the healthy choice difficult?
• What would make it easier?
• What support is missing?
• What small change would help to reduce friction?
• What is one small thing you can do this week, easily and on a daily or almost daily basis?

Sometimes the answer has less to do with nutrition information and more to do with making healthy choices easier. In Why Some of My Best Meals Never Start With a Recipe, I discussed how keeping simple, whole-food ingredients available can reduce decision fatigue and make healthy eating more practical.

Those questions lead to meaningful solutions and are the baby steps required for lasting, lifelong habits.

The Bigger Lesson

After spending almost 30 years of studying health and working with clients, I have come to appreciate that knowing what to do and actually doing it are two very different things.

Most people do not need another list of foods to eat or avoid. They do not need more rules or another promise that this diet will finally be the answer. They need help bridging the gap between good intentions and daily life.

That bridge looks different for everyone. For one person, it may be learning how to prepare vegetables in a new way. For another, it may be improving sleep, reducing stress, learning to plan, or finding meals that fit into a demanding schedule. The details vary, but the challenge is the same: how do we take what we know and turn it into something we can realistically maintain?

The longer I work in this field, the more convinced I become that lasting change comes from small, practical changes that fit so naturally into daily life that they eventually become part of who we are.