Dr's Casebook: ​Make the domino effect work for your health

Dr Keith Souter writes: If you do indulge in binge watching television take care not to snack too much, because it is easy to develop a habit and unconsciously eat when you don’t need to.

It is interesting the way that habits, especially health habits seem to get linked like this. It has been demonstrated in several studies that the more people watch TV as a sedentary activity, the more they tend to consume salty and sweet foods.

A study demonstrated that in the same way that one habit can lead to another, the reverse can happen in a domino effect manner. For example, cutting down on sedentary leisure like TV watching does seem to dramatically reduce the intake of junk food and saturated fats. The benefits are doubled accordingly.

One study showed that changing two major factors can have a huge impact on one’s health and well-being. The first is to reduce time watching TV or playing games on the computer as a leisure pursuit. And the second is to eat more fruit and vegetables. The benefits result from the domino effect.

This study was conducted with 200 adults varying in age from 20 to 60 years, all of whom had unhealthy lifestyles. They were randomly allocated to four groups. The first group increased their fruit and vegetable intake and increased their physical activity. The second group had to decrease their fat intake and decrease their sedentary activity. The third group reduced fat intake and increased physical activity. The fourth group increased their fruit and vegetable intake and decreased their sedentary leisure time.

The researchers expected that as soon as the trial had finished people would go back to their bad habits, yet this didn’t happen. Especially the people who increased their fruit and vegetables and reduced TV watching, they improved their health on several health markers.

It seems that making two simple lifestyle changes at a time, rather than one has a real domino effect on health.