There is no shortage of problems with our modern approach to health, but there's something I see throughout the health and wellness industry that's particularly exhausting.
We've become obsessed with doing health “right.” We're constantly told what to eat, how to move, which supplements to take, and which habits to adopt, with an implicit assumption that there's a correct way to approach every decision. Foods are good or bad, workouts are effective or ineffective, and habits are optimized or lazy. But health isn't black and white. Context matters, trade-offs matter, and a choice that supports one person's health might undermine another's.
I think we're missing two fundamental pieces of the puzzle: we focus on what we're doing for our health without considering our relationship with those choices, and we judge individual decisions without considering the broader context of our lives. Let's dig into that.
Context Matters
Circumstances, intention, quality, quantity, frequency, and our relationship with a behavior all shape its impact. A holistic approach means looking at the whole person and how the different pieces of life fit together. Let's start with food, because it's easy to digest ;)
Are cheeseburgers healthy? It depends. A homemade cheeseburger made with quality ingredients can be a balanced, nourishing meal, while a fast-food version may have a different nutritional profile. But ingredients only tell part of the story. Can you enjoy a cheeseburger without guilt, or have you built such rigid rules around eating that certain foods create anxiety? Do you feel satisfied afterward? What about three cheeseburgers in one sitting? Quantity matters, too. Are you ravenous after a physically demanding day, or are you eating past fullness because you never feel satisfied? These questions illustrate why labeling a single food healthy or unhealthy is an incomplete way to think about nutrition.
Exercise works the same way. It can support cardiovascular health, strength, mood, and metabolic function, but picture two people going for a run. One runs because they love being outside, enjoy the challenge, and finish feeling energized. The other runs out of guilt, forces themselves through exhaustion, or believes they have to burn off what they ate. The activity looks identical, yet the experience and its broader implications can be very different. Discipline has value, and not every workout should feel effortless. Sometimes we do hard things because we value the long-term payoff. The question is when consistency starts becoming rigidity, or when a commitment to exercise begins crowding out recovery, relationships, and other things that matter. The answer depends on your circumstances, your relationship with exercise, and how it fits into the bigger picture of your life.
Health Is More Than Physical Health
If we define health only by physical measures and behaviors, we miss a fundamental part of the picture: health is also shaped by how we experience our lives. Relationships, work, emotional well-being, hobbies, purpose, and opportunities for joy and connection all contribute to our health. Think about what you're ultimately trying to achieve with your health decisions. You presumably want the energy to enjoy your life, build meaningful relationships, pursue what excites you, and engage with the world. Physical health supports those goals, but it represents only one dimension of a fulfilling life. You can eat well, exercise consistently, and follow an impeccable sleep routine while feeling lonely, unfulfilled, or disconnected from the people and activities that give your life meaning.
A behavior that improves one health marker while consistently undermining your emotional well-being deserves a closer look. An experience with little measurable physical benefit may still make a meaningful contribution to your overall health. Our relationships, sense of purpose, and emotional well-being deserve consideration alongside the physical measures that tend to dominate conversations about health.
Everything Is Connected
Our choices don't happen in isolation. Imagine waking up at 5 a.m. to exercise before work. If you went to bed at midnight, that routine leaves you chronically short on sleep. But if you consistently get enough rest, love exercising outdoors before the city wakes up, and notice your mood improves, the same habit benefits you in several ways. The context changes its overall impact.
Choices can reinforce each other positively, too. Time with friends might get you outside, moving, and laughing without feeling like exercise. A hobby might introduce you to a community and give you something to look forward to. Adequate rest might leave you the energy to cook a nourishing meal and be more present with the people you love. Working late might advance your career while costing you sleep, friendships, and hobbies, while an intense training schedule might improve performance at the expense of recovery and other things you care about. What matters is how these trade-offs accumulate and whether the overall arrangement supports the life you want.
So how do you evaluate those trade-offs? As an economist, I have two concepts that help.
Your Health Has an Opportunity Cost
In economics, opportunity cost is the value of the next-best alternative you give up when you make a choice. Resources are limited, so choosing one thing means giving up something else. Time and energy work the same way: an hour spent exercising is an hour you can't spend sleeping, seeing a friend, working on a creative project, or simply doing nothing.
The value of exercise should be weighed against what that hour could otherwise contribute to your life. If you're consistently sacrificing sleep to fit in a workout, compare the benefits of the workout with the benefits of rest. If you're working late every night, consider the professional gains alongside the relationships and downtime you're giving up. A decision deserves to be evaluated in terms of both its benefits and its costs, even when those costs are difficult to measure. An activity with little measurable physical benefit might be an excellent use of your time because of the joy, meaning, or connection it brings. Pursuing one dimension of health at the expense of everything else can be a poor investment.
More Isn't Always Better: Diminishing Returns
The econ nerd in me has one more principle to share: the law of diminishing returns. As you keep adding more of something, the benefit of each additional unit eventually decreases. Extra hours at work might help you advance, build skills, or accomplish something meaningful, but at some point, another hour at your desk contributes less than the one before it, especially if it comes at the expense of things that matter more. Investing in relationships deepens connection, but saying yes to every invitation doesn't necessarily make those relationships stronger.
The pursuit of health follows a similar pattern. Learning about nutrition, understanding your body, and building supportive habits are valuable, but there may come a point where another hour of research, another wellness practice, or another attempt to optimize your routine adds very little to your life. The question is whether the next increment of effort delivers enough benefit to justify its cost. We live in a culture that insists more is always better: more productivity, more achievement, more self-improvement, more wellness practices. A fulfilling life requires room for priorities beyond accumulating accomplishments and healthy behaviors. Sometimes the most valuable move is to change your approach or step back from the pursuit altogether.
So How Do You Know What's Healthy for You?
By now you might be thinking that weighing every decision against your entire life sounds exhausting. Are you supposed to run a cost-benefit analysis every time you decide what to eat, whether to work out, or how to spend an evening? Absolutely not. These concepts are tools for understanding your choices, not instructions for turning everyday life into an endless calculation.
Part of the problem is that modern life trains us to look outside ourselves for answers. We follow rules, meet expectations, push through discomfort, and measure ourselves against external standards. We ignore hunger because it isn't mealtime, override exhaustion because there's more to do, or grind through a workout because our tracker says we haven't done enough. In the process, we lose touch with the signals that tell us what we need. Reconnecting with your body gives you a better starting point. When you're attuned to your hunger and fullness, your energy, your need for rest, and how different experiences make you feel, you have more information to work with. You can recognize when a challenge energizes you and when you're pushing past what serves you, as well as the difference between genuinely enjoying something and doing it out of obligation.
Your internal cues are valuable information, though they won't always dictate the best decision. Sometimes you need to do something hard even when you don't feel like it, and sometimes what feels good now may come at the expense of your long-term goals. Reconnecting with your body means building the awareness to understand what you're experiencing and make more intentional choices. As that awareness grows, you start recognizing patterns, noticing when something feels out of balance, and adjusting without having to consciously weigh every variable.
When the Healthiest Choice Isn't the Obvious One
Sometimes a choice that looks less healthy on paper makes the most sense in context. Consider a few examples.
Sometimes, the healthiest thing you can do is eat the cupcake. If you constantly deny yourself foods you've labeled unhealthy, restriction can become a source of stress, guilt, and preoccupation. You might spend more energy fighting the craving than it would take to simply enjoy one. In that context, eating the cupcake may be healthier than perpetuating a cycle of restriction and guilt. The nutritional value of the cupcake matters, and so does your relationship with food.
Sometimes, the healthiest thing you can do is nothing at all. You could spend Sunday meal prepping, exercising, running errands, and getting ahead on work. But if you're exhausted from a demanding week, the most beneficial choice might be to abandon the to-do list and rest. Rest is a biological necessity and doesn't have to be earned through productivity. Time spent doing nothing isn't wasted.
Sometimes, connection is worth disrupting your routine. You have a nutritious dinner waiting at home, but a friend invites you to a restaurant you've been wanting to try. Or an old friend is in town for one night, and you know y'all will be out late if you get together. Sticking to the meal plan or sleep schedule may mean missing an experience that brings you joy and connection. Depending on the circumstances, that trade-off may be well worth it.
Sometimes, the healthiest choice is saying no to something good. An exciting project, another work opportunity, or a social commitment might sound worthwhile on its own. But if your schedule is already full, accepting could cost you time, energy, or attention you need elsewhere. Turning it down allows you to protect those resources for other priorities. Even good things have costs, and you can't say yes to everything without giving something up.
These examples illustrate how the same behavior can mean different things depending on the circumstances, the pattern over time, and what you gain or give up. Understanding those nuances helps you make decisions that support your well-being in the context of your life.
Conclusion
There is no universal formula for a healthy life because there is no universal context in which we live. The same behavior can serve one person well and work against another, and what supports you in one season of life may not be what you need in the next. The goal is to make choices that support your health in the context of your actual life: caring for your body while making room for relationships, meaningful work, curiosity, rest, pleasure, and the experiences that make life worth living.
So the next time you catch yourself asking, “Is this healthy?” try a more useful question: Is this healthy for me, in this context, at this point in my life? You don't need a perfect answer every time. You need the awareness to recognize that the answer depends on more than the behavior itself, and the connection to your own body to help you figure out what that means for you.
Because context matters :)
