Much has been written about how to stay calm and enjoy the celebrations that come with the holidays at year’s end. There’s a lot of advice out there, some more useful than others.
In the land of health and fitness, there are many interventions on offer to avoid holiday weight gain and the regret that may follow. There are challenges, contests, boot camps, and other ways to incentivize people to hold the line during the holidays. There may be prizes at the end of the season if there hasn’t been any weight gain.
These are external reward systems that may or may not work, even in the short term. Research tells us again and again that short-term reward systems are not effective for any sustainable change in behavior. At the end of the day (or season), has anything changed to make the next event easier to deal with?
There is an opportunity here to take a closer look at the ins and outs of social eating and apply a few principles that can be useful all year when it comes to social eating situations.
What goes in to how we choose to eat when we are in social situations?
This is just a sampling. As usual, anything that involves human behavior and the choices we make is incredibly complex!........