System Change Farrokh Alemi Ph.D.

What is? Lifestyle change System change Structural change So, everyone asks you to make lifestyle changes but you are not sure what is meant by it. The purpose of this lecture is to help you sort out what is meant by lifestyle, system or structural changes. The terms lifestyle, system and structural changes are used interchangeably to designate a change that goes beyond diet and exercise and affects many other aspects of daily routines. These words emphasize the need to make many interrelated changes that eventually lead to better diet and exercise habits.

What is? Lifestyle change System change Structural change On the road to diet and exercise change, a system change is a detour. Instead of changing diet or exercise directly, daily routines and physical environment are changed in the hope that these steps will eventually lead to better diet and more exercise. Sometimes what is changed seems completely unrelated to diet and exercise.

Examples Joining a car pool One person reduced junk food by joining a car pool. Why would a car pool lead to better diet? On the surface, car pool and diet seem completely unconnected. But for this person they were not.

Examples Joining a car pool Work late Eat late Stay up late Skip lunch Arrive late Wake up late He worked late and would get home late. Then he would prepare food but it would take a long time and he would eat late. He would stay up late watching television so that his food would be digested. Then he would wake up late and have to rush to work, usually arriving late. Feeling guilty, he would work through lunch and try to catch up. As the day would go by he would eat some junk food to maintain his hunger. At the end of the day, he would continue working and he would fall back into the cycle of arriving home too late to make dinner at a reasonable time. The entire cycle was broken up by the car pool. He had no choice but to leave work at 5, getting home very early, cooking dinner and having it well before bed time and falling asleep quite early. Then he would wake up early the next morning and getting to work pretty early too. Joining the car pool worked for this client. He reduced his junk food and started losing weight. Joining a car pool is an example of a system change to lose weight .

Another example Another example is working standing up. This computer programmer solved the problem of long hours of sitting by working while standing up. He would sit on a chair when he was tired but most of the time, when he was working, he would stand up. Since standing up consumes more calories and puts less pressure on one’s back, this computer programmer introduce exercise in his work by changing his desk. This is an example of a system change, a change that indirectly affects diet and exercise.

Another example The same principle is shown to work for these elementary students, all standing up in class. The students learned more and lost weight at the same time. Goodbye childhood obesity.

Still other example Get a dog Reduce home temperature Bike to work Move television to exercise room Here are more examples of environmental changes. One person exercised more by getting a dog. Another person became more active in a colder house. Still another changed his commute patterned and started biking to work. Finally another person exercised more when the television was moved to the exercise room. These are all examples of system change.

Not a System Change Increased motivation More effort If you get yourself motivated, sort out your attitude towards food, if you insist that you should exercise, if you talk yourself into doing more, staying committed, all of this is not system change. They may work and you may lose weight or exercise more but your motivation will eventually waiver and you will not succeed in the long run. In this lecture we are looking for system change and not increased effort. When you rely on your own motivation and effort, you have to deny yourself what you like, you have to fight yourself. You feel terrible and if feels like having to bike up the hill, you have to do so much just to maintain the gains you have had.

Not a System Change Increased motivation More effort When you create a system change, you create an environment that pushes you to live better. It feels easy to stay with your resolution. In fact, the environment may force you to stay with your resolutions. It may feel like running downhill to avoid a boulder behind you. You would be living well without a conscious decision. You may succeed without trying. Take, for example, biking to work. It would not feel like you are exercising every day. You are simply commuting to work and the exercise is an added benefit. One day you will wake up and be surprised at how fit you are. If someone asks you what are you doing to stay so fit, you may honestly answer: “Nothing really.” It may feel like you have lost weight and exercised more without putting any effort into it. This is how system change works. It creates an environment where you succeed effortlessly and despite yourself.

Definition Interrelated items Let us define what we mean by system or structural change. A system is a collection of interrelated items. A system change is to bring about a change in your own behavior through taking advantage of the relationship between your behavior and other aspects of your life. You may ask what do we have in mind when we refer to other aspects of your life.

Definition Interrelated items Environment This could be the physical environment, as when someone loses calories by living in a colder house. Or if someone stops drinking sodas by refusing to buy them and stock up on them.

Definition Interrelated items Environment Daily routines This could be changes in daily routines, for example when a person would shower at the gym. For another example, when after wash, you keep exercise clothes in the car and not in the closet. I have heard of people who changed their lives by when then went to bed or how they washed dishes.

Definition Interrelated items Environment Daily routines Events over time System change is relying on interrelatedness of our lives. One way this shows up is in the relationship among our decisions over time. What we do the night before affects us the next day. Our shopping affects our eating. Decisions we make in the supermarket affects our diet. Often we can create a situation where our earlier decisions remove our later choices and therefore force us to accomplish our resolutions. System change lets us see the relationship among our various decisions, from small to large decisions. The decisions to live far away from work means that we have long commutes which means we will be tired and sedentary which means that we will gain weight. The point is that our lives are full of interrelated decisions, many of which affect our diet and exercise. System changes makes us aware of these relationships.

Definition Interrelated items Environment Daily routines Events over time Other people Finally when we talk of interrelatedness of our lives we should not forget how social situations affect us. System changes requires us to look at the relationship between our social network and our behavior. Some may say, wait a minute, my behavior is based on my own decisions and I am the one responsible for it. Yes it is but you are influenced by all sorts of things. When your spouse smokes it is hard for you to stop. When others in your family over eat, so will you eventually. It is not that you have no choice but that you are likely to follow their example. They create an environment in which their behavior is encouraged and since you share this environment then you too will be likely to do the same.

Less Effort? Changing all Changing yourself This all creates a sort of a paradox. You have to change not only yourself but also others. Isn’t changing a bunch of people more work than just changing yourself? Here lies the paradox. The effort is less when the entire group changes their shared environment than when one person tries to change his or her own behavior. When the entire group changes the environment, everyone does a little and feels no burden. When you try to go your way and against others, you and others would be fighting each other, arguing each other. You ask them not to smoke and they smoke behind your back. You buy healthier food but they stock on junk food. In the end the conflict in the group, the conflict in the environment makes personal change a lot harder than group change. This is why system change is often a group activity. Changing the shared environment requires everyone affected to chip in and help.

How do we know we are making system change? Is the effect indirect? Lets assume that you want to make a system change. How would you know if the idea you have is a real system change as opposed to just more effort? Our discussion so far provides us with some principles we can use to check our ideas. The first one is that the effect should be indirect. System change does not directly affect our diet and exercise but through a series of other events.

How do we know we are making system change? Is the effect indirect? Affects entire group? Another giveaway that tells us the idea is a system change is whether it affects the entire group or just ourselves. System change affects the shared environment which de factor affects others around us.

How do we know we are making system change? Is the effect indirect? Affects entire group? Is the trigger occurring days before the behavior change? One sure giveaway is when the trigger event occurs days before the actual diet and exercise decisions.

Take the Test To help you sort out whether your ideas are system change or just more effort, we have put together a questionnaire. Here are some of the questions we ask. These questions attract attention to features of system change. For example the first question tries to establish if the proposed change occurs prior to eating or exercising decision. The second question gets at the fact that system change does not rely on motivation. The third question emphasizes that system change does indirectly affect diet or exercise. You can read this questionnaire and see how we have gone about defining system change and distinguish it from more effort.

Take the Test Here are more of the questions in this 22 item questionnaire. For each idea you check if one of 22 questions can be applied to the idea. The idea with most check marks is more of a system change.

Selecting System Change Brainstorm ideas Check against System Change scale Select the idea with highest checks If you want a system change, you should start by bringing together all people who have a shared environment and ask them to brainstorm ideas for change. Then, for each idea, answer the survey questions and select the idea with the highest number of check marks. In this fashion, you can move your thinking away from putting more effort into diet and exercise and into making lasting system changes.

System Change relies on relationship among events in our lives Take Home Lesson System Change relies on relationship among events in our lives The take home lesson for this lecture is simple. Change your thinking. Search for system change ideas. System change brings about diet and exercise change through related events and environmental changes. The hard part of what is ahead is not the effort you need to put in changing your diet and exercise but the time you need to put into sorting ideas for change. If you get the right idea, you will succeed without trying, you will bring about a transformation of your life, you will make lasting structural changes. In short, make a system change and the rest will take care of itself.