Niki Bezzant: It's not always easy to be healthy

Healthy food can be found, but food halls offer much more of the unhealthy stuff. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion

I went to the mall the other day, something I don't do very often. It happened to be lunch time and I happened to be hungry.

So I went in search of something good and reasonably healthy to eat. It is possible to find a healthy lunch in most mall food halls.

There is sushi and donburi. I could get a bowl of rice and vegetables and meat or fish. There are healthier choices at one or two of the burger outlets, or Mexican places. But you have to work quite hard to do that.

The lone salad place (where we ended up eating) was on its own away from the main food hall and we only found it because we actively went searching.

The overwhelming majority of what was on offer and easily accessible was brown and white food. Fried and refined and cheap and served in really large portions.

In other words: stuff it's not ideal to eat too often.

This made me think about something we often hear from obesity experts: that we live in an obesogenic environment.

We are surrounded by food (and the marketing of food) that encourages us to eat poorly.

It is easier to make an unhealthy choice than a healthy one.

This is where people usually pipe up and say, oh, it's all about individual responsibility; we can choose healthier options if we want to; people are just lazy/uneducated/stupid.

I understand that attitude.

Yes, we do have free will.

Personal responsibility is important.

We are each responsible for our own health and putting time and effort into it is absolutely essential.

But we've all had occasions when we've made an unhealthy choice out of necessity.

When we are under pressure or stressed or have difficult things going on.

And I bet we have all made a less healthy choice at some point when we've been surrounded by less healthy choices.

Think about airports, or travel in general.

When we're away from our regular surroundings we're often forced to compromise on health and eat things we might not at home.

Sometimes the only option is to have what's available.

Remember how that feels?

Now put yourself in the shoes of someone in that situation all the time.

Perhaps they live in a neighbourhood that only has cheap and unhealthy takeaway outlets.

Perhaps they don't have a car to go to the supermarket.

Perhaps they only have a few dollars left to spend on this meal.

Perhaps they only have 10 minutes to grab and eat.

Perhaps they work at that mall and the food hall is the only option.

Perhaps they're human and susceptible to the influence of what's around them.

The choices we make are only as good as the choices we have.

So we should stop judging each other about those choices.

What we can do instead is use our power demand better choices.

Imagine living in health-promoting environments, instead.

I don't think that's an impossible dream.