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Yes­ter­day, I was stand­ing in a check­out line at the gro­cery store sur­rounded by the usual items — a wide selec­tion of can­dies, celebrity mag­a­zines, and diet tips. Of course, one of the mag­a­zines was adver­tis­ing a com­bi­na­tion of two themes: a celebrity diet. I’ve always found these diets incred­i­bly silly, not because the advice is nec­es­sar­ily bad, but because the whole mat­ter of eco­nomic incen­tives is left out of the equation.

Celebri­ties don’t stay in shape thanks to spe­cial tech­niques or a superb per­sonal trainer. Rather, the profit motive does most of the work. In order to con­tinue mak­ing mil­lions every year, celebri­ties must stay incred­i­bly fit. If each of our read­ers were offered a mil­lion dol­lars per year to stay in shape, we’d all see the pounds falling off rapidly. The aver­age per­son sim­ply doesn’t have the same incen­tives as actors and actresses. Most Hol­ly­wood denizens don’t stay fit because of fab­u­lous diets — they have a very pow­er­ful mon­e­tary incen­tive that keeps them on those diets. The rest of us can cheat; we don’t have a movie shoot com­ing up in a few months.

But isn’t health and a long life enough of an incen­tive? Yes and no. As a doc­tor friend of Read more…