Health is countercultural
It’s a bit of a classic mistake, isn’t it? Most debates about the health crisis start in entirely the wrong place, obsessing over hospital beds, budgets, medication or insurance systems. While those things obviously matter, they’re really just downstream consequences. The actual problem sits much further up the chain in a spot we rarely want to poke because it’s awkward and glacially slow to change: our culture.
By culture, I don’t mean the sort of stuff you find tucked away in a museum. I’m talking about the everyday grind. It’s what you grab for breakfast when you’re half-asleep, what feels ‘normal’ for a quick lunch, and the things that inevitably crop up at birthdays, work meetings, or petrol stations. Culture’s basically the set of defaults you fall into when you’re knackered, stressed, or just trying to survive the week without a breakdown.
And here’s the kicker: in our modern world, being healthy is actually countercultural.
Cosy defaults and the path of least resistance
Most people don’t sit down and rationally plot out their eating habits every morning. They just repeat what feels familiar and reminds them of home. Those habits carry a lot of emotional weight, like safety and belonging, because food is effectively care. It’s why habits get passed down through generations so easily; parents feed their kids what they were fed, not because they’ve done a deep dive into nutritional science, but because it makes them feel that they are taking good care of their children.
A bit of pizza for dinner, pastries for breakfast, or a packet of Doritos on the sofa—none of this feels like a conscious decision. It just feels like life. Culture gives us these pleasurable defaults so we don’t have to think, but the snag is that in many countries, those defaults are actively killing us.
Why pleasure isn’t an accident
Food, including junk food, comes to us wrapped in a whole array of emotions, usually love, fun, friendship, happiness. But unhealthy food isn’t just culturally comforting; it’s biologically brilliant at making us feel good. Sugar, refined carbs, and unhealthy fat hit reward systems in the brain that are optimised for a world of scarcity, not one where you can get a glazed doughnut delivered to your door in ten minutes. Junk food is cheap, intense, and engineered to be addictive. Ultra-processed snacks are designed with a ‘bliss point’ so you never quite feel full, but you’re always ready for another handful. So, when people keep eating poorly despite knowing the risks, it’s because culture and biology are ganging up on them.
From the biscuit tin to the hospital ward
The link between these everyday treats and chronic disease isn’t exactly a conspiracy theory anymore. Diets built on fizzy drinks and constant grazing are tied directly to type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and a whole host of metabolic nightmares. It’s not about the odd treat. It’s about the frequency. When cake becomes an everyday food and the body’s insulin system never gets a breather, inflammation becomes chronic and weight gain becomes the inevitable default.
Since we share these habits, the diseases show up at a population scale. The health system then has to step in to manage the fallout with medication and surgery, which is necessary, sure, but it’s a bit like trying to mop up the floor while the tap’s still running full pelt.
Why most policies miss the mark
This is exactly why nutrition labels and awareness campaigns often feel so underwhelming. They assume people make decisions by calmly reading a packet and weighing up the data, which, let’s be honest, is a bit optimistic when you’re starving at 5:00 PM. We’re stuck in a loop where supermarkets stock what people buy, and people buy what’s stocked, reinforcing a norm that’s making us miserable.
Labels don’t change culture on their own. They’re just background noise compared to the cheap, ubiquitous pull of a pastry. Even the health system itself can become a bit of a smoke screen, giving us the impression of action while the cultural engine keeps humming along. You can build the most efficient ambulance service in the world, but it won’t stop people from driving into walls.
Culture as the middleman
None of this means culture is set in stone, but it only shifts under sustained pressure. If we want any real success, culture has to be the target. We can’t go around it.
That means we need policy bundles that last for decades rather than just one election cycle, with a heavy focus on schools, advertising, and what we consider ‘normal’ food. Most importantly, we’ve got to stop pretending pleasure (both sensory and emotional) doesn’t exist. Healthy food has to stop feeling like a punishment and start feeling like a delicious choice, and an easy, social one.
Until that shift happens, staying healthy will keep feeling like swimming against a very strong current. It’s a tough nut to crack, but treating it as a simple technical issue of healthcare delivery is never going to be enough.