On a personal note since graduation I’ve noticed people getting gym memberships and the marked improvement in their self images. I feel that its the fact that when you really start to choose for yourself , choosing becomes easier and its self reinforcing. I read somewhere that we have a limited amount of self control but as we practice more self control this limit expands. I feel that this is the same thing, after finally deciding to improve and bit by bit trying to improve we expand this self control.
So if we could get people to exercise more, would they become more risk-loving, want less insurance, make more aggressive investments, and induce faster economic growth? Would this be a good thing?
That’s Robin Hanson, the basic empirical result is that physically weaker people are more risk-averse in a wide variety of settings.
from Overcoming Bias blog here.