Do Bad Habits Happen to Good People?
By:
NWHF Staff
| Posted on: September 1st, 2011
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Categories:
Policies & Laws •
Public Health
Bad Student? Bad Habit?
By Craig Mosbaek, CHP Contributor
When my daughter was in first grade, she came home and told me about a kid who misbehaved. I said something like, “that’s a bad kid.” She immediately came back with, “He’s not a bad kid. What he did was wrong.”
They are teaching this important lesson in elementary school: Focus on the behavior that can be corrected, not on the kid.
We in public health should apply this lesson too.
Today, a facebook post by one of my favorite public health sites, Improving Population Health, said, “Colleges increasingly inhospitable to smokers.” And, the post links to the CNN website with a headline, “Colleges tell smokers, ‘You’re not welcome here.’”
Now, would we really want colleges to reject potential students because they are smokers? I don’t think so.
People who smoke are not bad people. But smoking does kill you and hurts those around you.
Perhaps the post could have said: “Colleges increasingly inhospitable to smoking.”
But let’s congratulate these colleges for going smoke-free! This will help students who smoke quit for good and prevent others from starting to smoke.
What do you think? Can bad habits happen to good people? Is this a productive line of reasoning?
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