“Any time you want to institute a behavior change, policy changes are really quite effective,” said Lisako McKyer, a professor at Texas A&M in response to a decision by the San Antonio city manager to ban sugared sodas, among other things, in city facilities (San Antonio city manager wages war on sugar). Why stop there, I would ask. If behavior change is your goal, why allow anyone entering or utilizing these government facilities to be overweight? For that matter, we should start requiring all users of public facilities to perform some feat of strength before being granted access. After all, improved public health is our goal.
In fact, there’s no reason to stop there. Each person needing to wade through some bureaucratic red tape should first be required to prove a minimum number of community service hours. Depending on the complexity of the need, they should also be forced to perform some function specific to offsetting their carbon output. Better yet, require them to surrender their time in a state sanctioned charitable endeavor.
As long as we have the power of the government, and its implied force, there’s no limit to the number of behavior changes we can achieve.
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