A few weeks ago there was an article in the New York Times on decision fatigue. Decision fatigue is basically our mind’s tendency to stop thinking through decisions as the number of decisions one has to make accumulates. Decision fatigue is often used by critics of the market because the market “gives us too many decisions,” but its implications are actually rather far-reaching.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has been back in the news lately as he contemplates a presidential run. When Christie comes up, his famous girth becomes a part of the discussion as often as not. There is the implication that Christie has it coming because he is the one that let himself get so fat and continues to “let himself” be so fat. It’s not a matter of making fun of the fat guy. It’s a matter of pointing out his lack of discipline. Now, I can write paragraph after paragraph on the subject, but I’ll (try to!) spare you at the moment and ask you to consider the relationship between obesity and decision fatigue.
A lot of people labor under the impression that a fat body really wants to be thin. That any hunger on the part of a fat guy is illusory. It’s all in the mind. We know this because we get by on 2,000 calories a day. So what’s his problem. Though I firmly believe that the hunger is not just coming from the mind, I am not sure how much it actually matters. The mind is a complicated thing, after all, and the desire is coming from somewhere, and not from the desire to make your world aesthetically unpleasing. Not from a desire to struggle down the narrow aisleway of an airplane. Not to intrude on the person in the seat next to you.
So with the desire being there, dieting and losing weight simply is not a matter of “making the decision (to diet) and sticking with it.” Rather, it’s making decisions over and over and over again. All day. Every day. And under adverse circumstances:
Experiments conducted by social psychologist Roy Baumeister demonstrate that there is a finite store of mental energy for exerting self control. In other words, willpower depletes itself throughout the day, especially if your body is low on sugary glucose. When judges are tasked with either giving an inmate parole or sending them back to prison, for example, they were far more likely to grant parole in the morning, when willpower had not yet been depleted, or just after lunch when they were given a boost by the glucose in their midday meal.
So our ability to make sound decisions deteriorates throughout the day. And it deteriorates most when we are low in glucose — food. And so with the expectation that they just “put down the donut,” we are expecting them to make the right decision nearly each and every time throughout the day. Whenever food crosses their mind. Whenever hunger (in the stomach or in the mind) strikes. Because any wrong decision is enough to undo ten right ones. Any breakdown in the system is likely to result in the consumption of all of the calories that the person has been skimping on all day. And unlike with other decisions, say to quit smoking, this one is entirely related to one of the big factors that affects decision-making in the first place. Diets don’t have a failure rate of over 95% because 95% of people are weak and undisciplined. They fail because one’s body and one’s mind is stacked up against the process.
When you make the decision to do something, it’s a decision. When you make a decision not to do something, it’s actually a virtually unlimited number of decisions because you can spend all day thinking about that thing that you are not supposed to do. Dieting necessitates a preoccupation with food. When you think about avoiding food, most cruelly and most inconveniently, you have to think about food. And make the decisions – one after another – to ignore the desire for the thing that has set up camp in your mind.
The Governor of a state may reasonably be expected to be making decisions more or less constantly. If the bit about the judge’s decision fatigue is any indication, then we can reasonably expect that any sufficiently responsible public official will have difficulty dealing with balancing good food decisions and preserving enough mental energy to make good governmental decisions.
I’ve also heard that candidates, particularly for high office, are in an environment where people are thrusting all kinds of typically very fattening and calorie-rich food in their faces. “Welcome to Iowa, Governor, we’re interested in why you want to be President! Have a slice of our famous cherry pie while you tell us your platform.”
You missed a trick here by not trying in “decision fatigue” to the current Republican field:
“When you make the decision to do something, it’s a decision. When you make a decision not to do something, it’s actually a virtually unlimited number of decisions because you can spend all day thinking about that thing that you are not supposed to do. [A political nomination] necessitates a preoccupation with [politicians who might lose]. When you think about avoiding [losing politicians], most cruelly and most inconveniently, you have to think about [loser politicians]. And make the decisions – one after another – to ignore the desire for the thing that has set up camp in your mind. [i.e. Chris Christie]”