Irresponsibility: Finding Excuses

Last time I was very pleased to find an example of strong behavior in the dimension of responsibility. The woman attacked by the jaguar at the zoo admitted her part in the incident and hoped that others would learn from her mistake. 

When someone is in the wrong, the common reaction seems to be denial or making excuses. The news lately is filled with celebrities, politicians and their defenders quick to deny a charge, downplay the seriousness of a charge or call attention to all the celebrities or politicians in the past who did the same or worse without ramifications. So it’s OK?

Making excuses covers a multitude of sins, and it serves as a convenient, and often accepted, way  if covering up for behavioral slip-ups in any of the five key dimensions.

One area where this comes into play is when weak behavior in the area of discipline leads to unwanted consequences, for example, lung cancer from smoking, retirement insecurity from failure to save during the working years or obesity.

Along the lines of the latter I found this article on line: “10 Reasons Why Obesity Is NOT About Gluttony and Sloth.” First, the author obviously used the most provocative words possible to describe a situation characterized by a simple lack of discipline, too little exercise or too large portion sizes. Use of the terms gluttony and sloth, boarders on name-calling; they arouse a sense of resentment to prepare the reader to be receptive to a litany of ready-made excuses.

And here they come, all the reasons an unmotivated person can fall back on:

• Obesogenic Environment: where living in an area without sidewalks or safe walking routes coupled with a lack of accessibility to fresh fruits and vegetables along with other environmental factors may add challenges. (People would be thin as rails if only they had sidewalks.)
• Culture of Beauty: drives people toward an unattainable standard, encouraging “self-starvation, exercise abuse, and other eating disorders. It really only serves those who make money off of it.” (This stems from a perspective problem, being manipulated by external values.)
• Mental Health problems “from depression and anxiety to chronic stress and past trauma” can become an issue. “Weight gain can be the result of emotional eating as a way to cope or a result of medications.” (See addiction below for the same excuse in different words.)
• Genetics: While genetics does not predict obesity, over time the combination with other factors may predispose individuals to have obesity issues (though that doesn’t explain why it would suddenly become a factor in the last 50 years.)
• Social Networks: Social influences “play a role in our health behaviors including eating, exercise, weight loss or gain.” (Blame it on your friends.)
• Food Addiction: works like other addictions as “a way to cope with uncomfortable feelings and situations in life.” (Is it realistic to expect life to be comfortable all the time? How easy to forget that life in this century is more comfortable than at any other time in history.)
• Lack of Awareness: too many confusing “messages about what to eat, how to exercise, and ways to lose fat” leave “most of us…scratching our heads.” (But most of these confusing messages come from the purveyors of easy solutions, miracle diet plans and magic answers or from scientists trying to secure funding.)
• Family Income: “Soda is less expensive than water…” (Last I checked water is so inexpensive that I take a shower in it! It falls from the sky! Unless you live in a place like Flint, MI, this argument is as bogus as they come! See here for more about the expensive healthy food myth.)
• Environmental Chemicals in lab experiments alter the metabolism and increasing “the size and number of fat cells in animal exposed to chemicals.” (Blame it on the chemicals, while ignoring the difference between lab experiments and reality.)
• Fat Shame: causes the internalization of society’s fat phobia…creating the most harm. (But change is hard; it doesn’t happen without some discomfort as a motivation. If anything, society has become overly sensitive to the idea of fat shaming and many other attitudes labeled as intolerant.)

So there they are, ready-made excuses to maintain an unhealthy lifestyle. Just spouting off one or two of these (and ignoring the comments in parentheses) is a lot easier than taking responsibility for lapses in discipline.

Evidence Abounds

How hard is it to find evidence of problematic behavior in one or more of the five dimensions or of institutionalized support for these habits?  Surprisingly easy.  There are days when I have to pick and choose among available topics.

Today I have an Associated Press article left over from 3 weeks ago presenting research that tells how hormones make it more difficult to keep weight off after dieting.  The headline begins, “Not your fault!”  This is right out of the poor discipline/poor responsibility playbook.  It gives people the excuse that they can’t stick to their diet because of their hormones.  Ironically the header above the article features six advertising links, five of which are for weight-loss products, programs or surgery – the easy answers that everyone looks for when faced with the hard work of getting back to and staying at the right weight.  This is practically the definition of discipline and responsibility failures that bubble up into many other societal issues and crises (budgeting, smoking, and alcohol abuse, to name a few).

How, in the first place, can any reputable scientist say that hormones are the problem?  Didn’t humans have the same hormones many years ago when the number of overweight Americans was less than half of what it is today?  It just doesn’t add up.

Second, how can the parent of a teenager use hormones as an excuse for regaining weight and not let that teenager use hormones as an excuse for any of their own destructive decisions?  This sounds like a can of worms ready to be opened.

I have sometimes jokingly said that if I ever got arrested for anything, I’d just tell the police that what I was doing was performance art and protected under the First Amendment.  Now, I guess, if that doesn’t fly, I have the excuse of hormones to fall back on.  

Don't Call Alcoholism a Disease

Good news for the dimension of Responsibility!  There are some who disagree with using the disease model to label and treat alcoholics. 

Alcoholism is a serious personal and societal issue, but this article points out that calling it a disease may create other problems with the diagnosis and treatment of some individuals.  The article hints at, but does not directly say, that treating it as a disease also implies limited personal involvement in overcoming the problem.

One aspect of unsatisfactory behavior in the dimension of Responsibility across our society is to look for someone or something else to blame for our problems or suffering.  Claiming to be the victim of evil banks, big companies, the government, the actions of another (no matter how remote), a genetic defect, or a disease excuses us from personal responsibility, but also removes our control.  It is no longer our job to fix the problem, because it was not our fault to begin with.  We look to others for solutions:  doctors, lawyers and juries, government regulations, or advocates.  This passive approach leads to increased power for those rescuers and decreased power for us.  Therein lies the danger.  We are off the hook for the short term but have voluntarily diminished our choices and opportunities over the long term.  This is so insidious because these delayed consequences of inaction seem less threatening at the moment, lulling us into a false sense of security.

So many things these days are getting labeled as diseases or as the result of some genetic marker in our DNA that it is refreshing to see some of the experts backing off, allowing room for personal ownership and participation.  The fewer ready-made excuses the experts serve up, the better our chances of taking charge of our lives.