Social norms change drastically over time. Even just a cursory review of the previous 25, 50, or 100 years can give us a decent understanding of how societies have changed over time—for better or worse. Most of these changes have come in the face of accepted science, emerging technologies, and a deeper understanding of the world around us through the dawn of the Information Age.
Today, we would feel deranged to think we could cure a cold with a small dose of heroin. Yet, 100 years ago, this was a common ingredient in many cold remedies and cough syrups. How about a little cocaine to treat your toothache? Just head down to your local pharmacy and grab some off the shelf—no script necessary. While you’re there, don’t forget to pick up some morphine and opiates—as these were also available over the counter.
Maybe you have a blood infection—just slap a few leeches on your skin and they’ll suck the toxins right out of you. Got syphilis? Try rubbing a little mercury on it—now a known toxic chemical. Once you get your health back to normal though, you should try this new line of refreshing beauty products that you probably heard about on the radio. Companies like Radior and Tho-Radia now offer radioactive creams, soaps, and other beauty products purporting to revitalize the skin with its luminous energy. Not to worry though. The Geiger counter is only measuring 3.6 Roentgen. Not great, not terrible.
The norms previously described would appear to be extremely hazardous for our society’s long term health. But it took guinea pigs and sacrificial lambs to understand these truths. Through multiple generations and as societies have progressed, we’ve passed down the lessons learned over the years. Without a clear understanding of wrongdoing—whether formal or informal—and transmitting these messages of misbehavior, we are doomed to repeat past mistakes and slip into norm regression. While we’ve made great progress, we still have a long way to go—as you will see in the next example.
Between the late 1970s and late 1980s, America experienced an obesity epidemic that unfortunately continues on to this day. In my opinion, this epidemic stemmed from published reports that demonized dietary fats. The thought was if we reduced dietary fats we would improve our overall health. What consumers didn’t realize was that big food industries would be replacing those evil fats in our foods with innocent sugar. Consumers were focused on low-calorie this and fat-free that—not understanding the full ramifications of what we were doing to our bodies by ingesting such high levels of carbohydrate and processed fillers.
For as long as I can remember—from Kindergarten to senior year of high school—my morning breakfast consisted of some colorful and sugar-filled kid’s cereal, Little Debbie snacks, or Pop-Tarts. On the weekends, I would get lucky and my mom would make a huge pile of pancakes and I would pour copious amounts of syrup on it—don’t worry, it was fat-free syrup.
I never knew the damage I was inflicting on my body on a daily basis by consuming this junk. And to be fair, my parents didn’t know any better either. Looking back, I would probably have been better off by just skipping breakfast entirely. For some reason, I never thought it was strange that I had to lay down on the couch for ten minutes after eating breakfast. Frankly, I’m lucky that I never became a diabetic.
It took over 30 years for people to realize that eating processed junk and cutting out dietary fat may not have been the healthiest choice. I found out this truth myself by reading books and scientific studies about food and body-hacking to see what worked and what didn’t. At one point, I was weighing every ounce of food that entered my body and logging it into MyFitnessPal—a fitness/food tracking app that sold to Under Armour in 2015 for $475M.
After a month of tracking my macros (fat, protein, carbohydrate), I realized that the majority of my calories were coming from fat—about 60-65% of my total daily caloric intake. Yet at the same time in only a few weeks I lost over 10 pounds and felt phenomenal. I got my blood tested and my results were fantastic. Once I saw the results with my own eyes, I knew I was on the right path of discovering the truth. Now I feel empowered to spread my knowledge—especially to my family and friends. By trial and error, I accepted my truth and shared it with others to try to change the norm. When I describe my journey and process to others who are uneducated on the matter, I hear the same falsehoods over and over.
Isn’t eating that much fat going to make you fat? Won’t eating a lot of dietary cholesterol raise my blood cholesterol levels? How will I survive without eating sandwiches? Eat meat and vegetables and do occasional workouts. It’s not rocket science but at the same time it is incredibly difficult to change our norms until people accept the truth. Even after the new norm is formed, we then must intentionally break our existing bad habits.
Looking to the future, I think about what kinds of things we do today that will look and sound crazy in 50 years. Things that our kids and grandkids will see while looking back through the archives and ask us what we were thinking. Our response will most likely be: Everyone was doing it. We just didn’t know.
The following is a list of current norms (specifically regarding health) that I (and my wife) think we will look back in 50 years and say WTF:
Hormonal birth control for women
Implants/Plastic Surgery (specifically to improve body image)
Commonly prescribed long-term medications (statins, proton pump inhibitors, etc.)
Botox
It would be naive not to acknowledge how far science and technology have advanced society. But at the same time, I feel we’ve gotten here through asking questions and employing some common sense—which both feel lacking today. Through knowledge, experience, and science we can begin to shape the norms of the future. But we need to start questioning and scrutinizing existing norms and the powers that be—no matter if they come from our teachers, the government, big food, big pharma, doctors and health practitioners, et al.
If you don’t know why you are doing something, you should question it. Why do we do it this way? Who says we have to do it this way? Is this the best thing for me or is there something better? What are the long term ramifications of my actions? Be curious.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
This is post #43. You can follow me on Twitter or Instagram or sign up for my free newsletter here. Also please check out my Amazon page for a full reading list.