Living a healthy lifestyle is expensive. Even the cheap, quick fix isn't that: an hour of late-night television will convince you that the right fat-burning supplement and the best workout gadget out there can make you 30 pounds lighter in just 30 days for only three easy payments of $99.95.

At least that’s what we’ve been conditioned to believe. Business is booming in the health and fitness marketplace, yet the rate of obesity continues to progress at alarming rates. But are doctors focusing on the wrong advice?

“Our grandparents were less obese and knew a fraction of what we know now about what drives obesity,” said Wasim Maziak, associate professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Memphis. “The obesity epidemic is the result of gradual lifestyle changes that promote sedentary living and overeating.

"Subsequently, solutions to the obesity problem should involve large scale environmental changes that will allow people to lead more active lifestyles rather than another product to buy or a magic pill to take.”

Maziak is co-author of ‘From Health as a Rational Choice to Health as an Affordable Choice,’ a research article that outlines the fundamental problems with the individual approach to obesity that assumes informed people tend to behave in their best interest.

“Right now we prescribe healthy choices to the public, like eat more fruits and vegetables and get more exercise, but without paying attention that most people suffering from obesity cannot afford those solutions – healthy food is expensive, natural exercise such as walking is not possible because of streets that do not support walking or dangerous neighborhoods, et cetera,” he said.

“In order for us to have people listening to us we should stop prescribing healthy choices and work to make those healthy lifestyle choice available and affordable to people.”

Diane Kobrynowicz is a former social psychology professor who has been helping tutor people through the weight loss process via her website austinhealthcoaching.com. Her clients range from those making minimum wage to the very wealthy and she has heard every excuse in the book for why people don’t want to change their lifestyle.

“People are ‘cognitive misers’ which simply means we use simple rules of thumb to make decisions. We don’t want to expend a lot of ‘thinking effort’ if we don’t need to,” she said. “It’s also an excuse. People will take any excuse they can to continue their current habits. Healthy living is easy but it is change that’s hard.”

If you compare apples to organic apples, the organic option is probably going to cost more. But Kobrynowicz has plenty of affordable healthy alternatives ranging from simple fixes like eating out less and carrying your own water instead of buying bottled water to more elaborate ploys like creating a neighborhood cooking co-op.

A creative solution, the co-op allows you to cook one night a week and deliver food to your neighbors. If you get four families involved then three nights a week you get fresh, home-cooked meals delivered to your door. Since it generally takes the same effort to double or triple a recipe, it's an easy way to build community and create more health in your lives.

“If you just look at the price of food, you can generally buy less healthy food at a cheaper price than more healthy food, but there are exceptions,” Kobrynowicz said. “It takes time and energy to investigate how to purchase and prepare healthier food at a budget friendly price, but it can be done.”

Learning and educating others on how to change their environments and lifestyles will ultimately combat rising rates of obesity.

Mark Collins is a freelance writer in Austin, Texas.