[HN Gopher] It's a knowledge problem Or is it?
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       It's a knowledge problem Or is it?
        
       Author : 0xKelsey
       Score  : 32 points
       Date   : 2025-02-12 09:28 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (josvisser.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (josvisser.substack.com)
        
       | firesteelrain wrote:
       | Blog makes some good points with limited application of this
       | knowledge problem. Sometimes it is a a knowledge problem like not
       | having the knowledge (read: experience) or critical skills to
       | make the time to research or do a trade study on the right
       | approach. Even if given the time, the wrong decision or action
       | might still be taken. But then you have the knowledge for next
       | time.
        
       | angarg12 wrote:
       | > the color coding program was completely misguided because it
       | assumed that we didn't know what healthy food was. I challenged
       | the nutritionist to an experiment: Make two plates of food, go
       | into the restaurant at lunch time, and ask people to point out
       | the healthier plate. My bet was that if you did not purposefully
       | make it very tricky, people would unfailingly point to the right
       | plate.
       | 
       | I wholeheartedly disagree.
       | 
       | I used to struggled with weight most of my young years. No matter
       | what I did I achieved incremental advances at best. At some point
       | I decided to start "counting calories", something that I used to
       | frown upon.
       | 
       | To my shock some foods that I ate that I considered "healthy"
       | weren't so much so. This isn't even counting the fact that most
       | experts can't even agree what is healthy or not, and opinions
       | change over time.
       | 
       | Just like with coding, there are some black/white examples where
       | the average person could make an easy distinction, but then there
       | is a wide range of greys in the middle where people might not
       | really know what's "good/bad".
        
         | strken wrote:
         | Is a three-colour code going to tell you what's healthy?
         | 
         | I think I'd prefer a standard nutrition label, since I'd guess
         | that a mushroom battered in almond meal and deep fried in olive
         | oil is probably made of three green ingredients but will end up
         | red in combination.
        
         | yoyohello13 wrote:
         | I had a similar experience. I think counting calories really
         | does help in recalibrating your instincts around food. It even
         | pushes you toward healthier options. It also naturally pushes
         | you toward less calorie dense food. I remember a conversation
         | with myself where it really clicked "I could eat this massive
         | salad with ground beef and balsamic and feel full for hours or
         | I can eat two microwave burritos and still feel hungry."
        
         | jandrewrogers wrote:
         | I think part of the problem here is that "healthy" in a
         | nutritional quality sense is orthogonal to "healthy" in a
         | caloric density sense.
        
         | kiba wrote:
         | It depends, really.
         | 
         | Some people genuinely don't know what's healthy and what's not.
         | Some people know what's healthy but having trouble resisting
         | these temptation. Usually it's a mixture of both.
        
       | xg15 wrote:
       | OP indeed misunderstood the color coding program by treating it
       | as a knowledge problem. Looks to me like it was much more about
       | "nudging": It's one thing to decide for yourself, in your head,
       | whether to have the tofu bowl or the fries for lunch. It's
       | another to have both next to each other in the cafeteria, one
       | authoritatively labeled with a green, the other with a red dot.
       | Sure you can still choose the fries, but it will feel much more
       | directly like "bad choice" than without the markers.
        
         | firesteelrain wrote:
         | It could have been combined with calorie counting and
         | exercise/steps efforts too
        
         | marginalia_nu wrote:
         | Hasn't the nudging theory been pretty thoroughly debunked at
         | this point?
        
           | mtklein wrote:
           | It hadn't yet been at the time this program was in practice.
           | I wager the enthusiasm for nudging was probably around its
           | peak at the time we're talking, somewhere early 2010s?
        
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