DATE POSTED: August 6, 2008
13 Commandments of a Healthy Lifestyle

The Thirteen Commandments of a Healthy Lifestyle

·         Thou Shalt Not Eat Much Fast Food.

·         Thou Shalt Not Expose Others to Thy Tobacco Smoke

·         Thou Shalt Get Thirty Minutes of Moderate Activity each Day

·         Thou Shalt Not Abuse Alcohol or Drugs

·         Thou Shalt Eat More Vegetables and Fruits, and Less Meat

·         Thou Shalt Pay For Thy Vices as Higher Taxes for Tobacco and Alcohol

·         Thou Shalt Walk or Ride Thy Bike Rather Than Drive Thy Car Wherever Possible

·         Thou Shalt Not Drink Energy Drink Unless Thou Art Involved in an Endurance Event lasting more than One Hour

·         Thou Shalt Examine Thy Drug and Alcohol Use Habits

·         Thou Shalt Not Supersize thy Food Portions

·         Thou Shalt Relax, and Let Thy Anger and Frustration Pass

·         Thou Shalt Not Use Gasoline as a Recreational Substance

·         Thou Shalt Remember that the Goal of Thy Quest for Good Health  is Not to Live Forever, but to Improve the Quality of the Time You Have. . . .

DATE POSTED: June 2008
Bike to Work Part 1 - Norming

As the director of a project that is tasked with, among other things, encouraging people to be more active, I feel it is part of my job to ride my bike to work. It's a credibility issue for me: if I'm going to tell folks to be more active, I should be active myself. I suppose you could call it "leading by example," although I doubt I'm actually "leading" anyone anywhere. It would be better to call it "providing an example," perhaps.

So I see my morning ride as being like a part of my job, even if, strictly speaking, my employer might not. In my view, providing examples to people is part of a larger process of cultural transformation that is sometimes referred to in the world of behavioral science as "norming", in which desired behaviors are presented as if they were normal and routine behaviors in the hope that they actually become normal and routine. So, by riding my bike to work, I and every other cyclist on the road in the morning are presenting cycling as a normative behavior, as average, as something that people do regularly. And indeed, as we do it more often, and as more people join us on the morning commute, it does become more and more the "norm". And in the process, drivers get more and more used to bikes, so the roads get a bit safer to ride, so more people do it, and so on. Soon everyone is riding a commuter bike around Portland.

This cultural transformation is an important but challenging aspect of my job: to make physical activity the norm, rather than the exception, in our lives. The scientific verdict is in: people's health is better if they are physically active on a regular basis. And research has indicated that for many folks, physical activity is best sustained over the long run as part of a "lifestyle" rather than as a series of "exercise" sessions. So riding my bike to work provides an example of the type of activity that more folks should try to adopt. I'm not just saving gas and keeping myself healthy, I'm functioning as a kind of bicycle bodhissatva. Or something like that.

On a profound and fundamental level, helping to shift cultural norms towards acceptance of physical activity (and other healthy lifestyle choices) is my job! And one of the best aspects of my job is that simply riding a bike to the office can actually be part of the work that I do.