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Editor's update: ABC News reports that a second person has suffered a heart attack at the Heart Attack Grill this past weekend. The woman is recovering after "eating a double bypass burger, smoking cigarettes and having a margarita," according to ABC. -- Julie
Without reverse-engineering our habits, the likelihood of success is that
much lower. We need that self-awareness to improve our lives. At the end of the day, our success over our own habits will determine our quality of life as a nation, not a lawsuit or fine leveled against one vendor or even a whole class of restaurants.
If you've been online in the past 24 hours, you've heard about the man who had a heart attack at the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas, Nevada, while enjoying one of the burger joint's so-called "Triple-Bypass" burgers.
Image: KJGarbutt via Flickr
The Heart Attack Grill, which opened in Las Vegas in October, is known to locals and tourists alike as a place to indulge in uninhibited gluttony. Their motto is "Taste Worth Dying For." They offer 8,000-calorie burgers -- which involve several beef patties, American cheese, and bacon -- fries deep fried in lard, and provide any patron over 350 pounds who walks in the door with an unlimited supply of free bacon burgers.
It's easy, given the situation, to ask ourselves whether such a health-averse place should be held responsible for what happened to the man dinning there over the weekend. But as BusinessWeek's Teddy Wayne rightly points out, "To be fair to [Heart attack Grill owner Jon] Basso, more than 785,000 people have their first heart attack per year in the U.S., and this is the first to occur in his restaurant; better-known and less honestly named fast-food franchises have likely caused exponentially more coronary events over the years."
The knee-jerk reaction to hold a restaurant responsible for the health choices that we make every day misses the point. This isn't about one restaurant or even fast food restaurants -- this is about the choices we make. Despite being faced with the dire statistics resulting from poor heart health, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity, human beings haven't proved to be very good at estimating long-term risk.
Image by sql_samson via Flickr
We tend to focus on immediate problems, the things are right before our eyes. Failing health ten or even five years down the line isn't an immediate problem. Hunger is. Unfortunately for us, our choices can and often do become habits, and these habits, in turn, can have disastrous long-term consequences.
Understanding habits
In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg outlines the habit cycle, a simple three-step process that defines a lot of our choices, both good and bad: cue, routine, and reward. In order to tackle our bad habits, we have to analyze the corresponding habit cycle and identify the routine. He writes:
As an example, let's say you have a bad habit, like I did when I was researching this book, of going to the cafeteria and buying a chocolate chip cookie every afternoon. Let's say this habit has caused you to gain a few pounds. In fact, let's say this habit has caused you to gain exactly eight pounds, and that your wife has made a few pointed comments. You've tried to force yourself to stop -- you even went as far as to put a Post-It on your computer that reads "NO MORE COOKIES." But every afternoon, you manage to ignore that note, get up, wander toward the cafeteria, buy a cookie and, while chatting with colleagues around the cash register, eat it. It feels good, and then it feels bad. Tomorrow, you promise yourself, you’ll muster the willpower to resist. Tomorrow will be different.
But tomorrow, the habit takes hold again. How do you start diagnosing and then changing this behavior? By figuring out the habit loop. And the first step is to identify the routine. In this cookie scenario -- as with most habits -- the routine is the most obvious aspect: it's the behavior you want to change. Your routine is that you get up from your desk in the afternoon, walk to the cafeteria, buy a chocolate chip cookie and eat it while chatting with friends.
Next, some less obvious questions: What's the cue for this routine? Is it hunger? Boredom? Low blood sugar? That you need a break before plunging to the next task? And
