Toothpaste companies heavily advertise scary messages of tooth decay (a cue) ensuring people buy their product.
The taste was designed to produce a certain tingle in the mouth, a fresh, irritant taste that provided a 'reward'.

The Toothpaste Tingle Strategy

Companies make us habitual. Companies like Facebook, Netflix, and Uber spend millions on R&D of better tools to minimize friction, to get people to use their services more and more and form a habit.

Companies and Habits

Just as removing friction aids in doing the activity more often, adding friction can aid to remove the bad habit, by making it difficult or cumbersome to do so.
Example: Cigarette smoking declined due to adding taxes, banning in public places and removing from vending machines.

Adding Friction To Bad Habits

McDonald's, for example, uses brain science to create habits by:
<ul>
<li>Asking 'Would you like some fries with that?'</li>
<li>Keeping the restaurants' look and the food taste/color standardized to trigger habitual eating patterns.</li>
<li>The salt and sugar in the food are making the brain feel good and happy, creating a sort of addiction.</li>
</ul>

Junk Food Habits

Just merely knowing something is good or bad for you is not going to give you any benefit, unless the implementation is done. Conscious knowledge cannot change your behavior, one has to make necessary changes to successfully act in self-control. 
If you know that you will eat junk food because your refrigerator is filled with it, remove all the junk food.

Knowledge is not Enough When It Comes To Bad Habits

Though companies like Nike try to ignite our willpower with their slogans, ultimately willpower cannot squash our subconscious and unconscious behavior.
Repetition of action and thought can make the required change seep into us, turning it into a machine-like, habitual behavior.

Willpower is Limited

A strategy to break away from a habitual activity is to:
<ul>
<li>Recognize your dependency</li>
<li>Acknowledge how the bad habit affects your life</li>
<li>Control the Cues to minimize triggers.</li>
</ul>

Breaking Bad Habits: Recognize, Acknowledge, Control

Bad habits are not easy to break, especially if you find them satisfying. But it is possible. Read here how.

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How To Break Bad Habits

When it comes to escaping bad habits, relying on willpower is hopeless. We must find ways that don’t require us to be strong.

Several years ago, I bought a smartphone and soon came to love it. Being able to send an e-mail, look up a fact, or buy something no matter where I was meant a previously unimaginable gain in productivity. Every time I got an e-mail, the phone emitted a ping and I would deal with whatever it was, priding myself on my efficiency.

Adding Friction To Bad Habits

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