Pushback

Polluted air claims eight million lives each year. 2025 was the hottest year on record. By 2035, more than four billion people are projected to be living with obesity. These interconnected health and planetary crises can feel insurmountable. But in Pushback, one of the world’s leading behavioural scientists argues that transformative change is not only possible, but it's already happening around the world. It can be done. Professor Dame Theresa Marteau challenges comforting myths that our biggest problems are our personal responsibility alone. Drawing on decades of research, she shows how five everyday behaviours – what we eat and drink, whether we smoke, how active we are, and how we travel – are shaped less by individual choice than by the environments we inhabit. Those environments, she argues, have been designed in the interests of a handful of powerful industries – tobacco, alcohol, ultra-processed food and fossil fuels – together responsible for around one in four deaths worldwide and the majority of greenhouse gas emissions. Drawing on compelling case studies from countries including Australia, Lithuania, Mexico, the UK and USA, Marteau reveals what really drives large-scale behavioural change. Information campaigns and nudges are rarely enough. What works is changing the prompts around us: making healthier, more sustainable options easier, cheaper and more attractive – often through regulation. From restricting advertising to redesigning transport systems, from embedding citizens in policymaking to electing more women to office, she shows how societies can push back against corporate power. Clear-eyed, hopeful and grounded in robust evidence, this book is a blueprint for how to realign the relationship between citizens, governments and corporations – and to building a healthier future for us all.