Default To Healthier Choices

Default To Healthier Choices in General Healthcare

Here’s an interesting idea… In order to encourage people to make healthier choices, make the healthy choice the “default option”.

What does that mean? Turn water into the default drink with a meal combo, put healthy snacks in the vending machine, and even schedule routine medical procedures automatically.

Another idea is to place soda machines out of the way, and make water more easily accessible.

According to behavioral economists at Carnegie Mellon University, Aetna, and the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, these changes could "train" people to prefer healthier choices.

The economists call this concept asymmetric paternalism, wrote the WSJ Health Blog. The basic idea, it seems, is that if healthy choices are more convenient, then we’ll naturally prefer them.

The junk foods and sodas will still be available to avoid violating freedom of choice, but won’t be the convenient default.

Do you think it could work?

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