Spring 2012. Seoul, South Korea.
Before going to the English academy — typical after-school activity for a 10-year-old Korean kid — I sat on the windowsill with a vocabulary book in one hand and a green apple in the other. My mom had bought them. Each one wrapped in plastic, stacked inside the refrigerator.
Cold. Crisp. Sour enough to wake my mouth up. A warm breeze came through the window.
She never once told me to eat fruit. She just put them in the fridge. I reached in when I was hungry. That was all.
Ten years later, a professor showed a stat in class. Eighty percent of smokers already know smoking is bad for them. Information was never the problem.
That's when the window came back. The apple. My mom. She never said "Vitamin C is important." She bought the apples, put them where I could reach them, and let me decide. That was the communication.
My research starts with one question: How do you put a green apple in everyone's refrigerator?