Saturday, February 13, 2016

Healthful Environments: Where Are You and Who Are You With?

Taking a very broad macro-view, I underscore the significance of environments for our health and function by remembering how our species and all species came to be.  The body that we inhabit evolved to take advantage of the extant available environmental resources.  Our organs and physiological systems developed as they did because we needed to access and exploit what the physical environment offered.  We created tools and dwellings from what we found locally or from materials made from what we found locally.  And we organized our interpersonal relationships to capitalize on the adaptive skills and assistance of people around us.    

A more practical, personal, micro-view reveals that, like our prehistoric and historic forbearers, we always are somewhere and most often we are with someone; those facts profoundly influence what we think, feel, and do health-wise.   The three environments—natural, fabricated, and interpersonal—can be facilitating or debilitating.  We must think about them and structure them in order to effect salutary health-oriented changes.

If you want to become more physically fit, for instance, the natural environment can be an ally or an enemy.  Warm and moderate climates provide a comfortable setting for leaving your shelter and being active outdoors.  If your climate is sub-optimal or interfering and you want to be outside, you of course can dress accordingly.  An indoor activity is an obvious alternative venue.

The fabricated environment, spaces created by women and men, includes houses, offices, malls and similar places that we inhabit when going about our activities.  Those environments inhibit or facilitate our action-oriented physical and mental health goals.  It undoubtedly is easier, for instance, to study or relax in a quiet than in a noisy space.

Finally, the world of people—the interpersonal environment—contributes to healthful change promotion or aversion.   That influence sometimes is obvious and sometimes covert.  If you want to become a vegetarian and your family and friends start calling you “rabbit,” even jokingly, you might be dissuaded from changing.  Conversely, if they all encourage your initiative, your change-oriented efforts are buoyed.  Moreover, “social comparison theory” (Festinger L., 1954) suggests that, consciously or unconsciously, you continually compare yourself to those around you.  When surrounded by health-minded others, your explicit or implicit natural social instincts nudge you toward healthful activities, and vice versa.

So, in contemplating healthful lifestyle change, do not plan or initiate a program without considering your environments and without making a vigorous effort to structure them to be as change friendly as possible.  Choose goals that are consistent with your environments or choose environments that are consistent with your goals.  If neither option is possible, change your environments to be goal-consistent.


Festinger L (1954).  A theory of social comparison processes."  Human relations 7, 2, 117–140. doi:10.1177/001872675400700202.

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