When millions of people struggle with the same health behaviors, perhaps the question is bigger than individual willpower.

What If “Normal” is Part of the Problem?

Imagine growing up in a world where movement is naturally built into the day.

You walk to get where you’re going. Meals are often prepared from basic ingredients. Rest is protected. Social connection happens face-to-face. Eating is an event rather than something squeezed between emails, commutes, and screens.

Now imagine another environment.

You wake tired.

You sit while commuting.

You sit at work.

Food designed for convenience is everywhere.

Advertisements compete for your attention.

Works follows you home.

Stress becomes a staple — something you learn to tolerate rather than something you learn to manage.

Sleep gets sacrificed because there are not enough hours in the day.

Movement becomes another appointment you must somehow find time to schedule.

Then, eventually, someone tells you:

You need to make healthier lifestyle choices.

And technically, they may be right.

The question isn’t putting all the blame on lifestyle but actually looking at culture as one of the normalized behaviors that lead to increased lifestyle-related chronic illness.

If every cultural season, in an environment where high carbohydrates foods, fatty foods are celebrated as part of “the culture,” have we explored the contribution? If high carbohydrates and fatty foods were used during slavery to remain thick, firm, tough, could it be that lifestyle-related non-communicable disease resulted from trauma and became culturally accepted as a survival mechanism?

What we eat matters.

How we eat what we eat matters.

What we eat when we celebrate matters.

If the things we eat every day contribute to our unhealthy lifestyle, what can we do to change it?

Did the celebration of culture blur the lines of health?

In 2022, the WHO reported that 31% of adults worldwide were insufficiently physically active — that is roughly 1.8 billion people. In 2024, 1 in 7 people were reported living with obesity. In fact, I was one of those people in 2021.

If the food you eat, the place you see it, the people around it, the things it does to your body contribute to chronic illness, is not culture a huge part of the problem?

If the easiest food you are fed on poverty-outreach program is fattening, unhealthy, rich in carbohydrates and fats that tear you apart, is that not part of the problem?

However, all of this is in context and is not meant to restrict food love and discourage exploration. One fun meal every two weeks, considering your steady state does not say that tomorrow you’ll be chronically ill. It is the consistency that leads to that point.

Culture is:

Change, without observation can make life unrealistic, where more relapses occur.

Pick one ordinary day and pay attention to the health behaviors your environment encourages automatically.

Notice your movement

Your meals

Your stress

Your sleep

Your screen time

Your opportunities to rest.

Then ask yourself,

"How much of this did I consciously choose — and how much did I simply inherit as normal?”

You cannot intentionally rewrite a rule you don’t realize you’re following.

Culture can influence what happens next.

Could cultural and environmental factors worsen medication adherence? How can we fix it? What conversations must we have before the emergency?

Here are some questions for you and your loved ones:

This is why the Clinical Adherence System was created:

Belief — Environment — Barrier — Behavior — Support

Good adherence support investigates before it judges.

Track it. Manage it. Sustain it.

Designed for people living with chronic illness, caregivers, and health-conscious individuals, it transforms health management from an overwhelming task into a structured daily practice.

Growing up, I learned that being health meant …

After you have developed the previous prompt, ask yourself:

Which of these beliefs still support the person I am becoming, my health and how do I rewrite them if I need to?

Inheritance is not synonymous to permanence.

If you are going to question what has been normalized in your culture, please remember to go in with an open mind, open eyes and color for change.

What can you do to influence change may be the biggest question of your day.

Over the next 7 days, here is something we can do:

Personal responsibility. Cultural change. Environmental Awareness.

Your culture may have handed you a script; however, you hold the pen. You can decide whether you keep living how the culture nurtured you or choose to change.

In the end, the most important thing isn’t what they think but what matters to you most while giving yourself the best chance at a Well Life.