‘Healthism’ And How You Might Be Contributing to It

Alice Wade

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“The only way to healthfully navigate life is to get your own, and then live it as openly, generously, and ‘ism-less’ as possible.” – Bailey Vincent

In 1980, political economist, Robert Crawford, published a paper on the health industry in which he referred to the term ‘healthism’. He used it to describe the “preoccupation with personal health as a primary matter of moral obligation”, reflecting the way in which society has become obsessed with judging others according to their lifestyle choices. Crawford explained how the pursuit of health has mutated into something that can be extremely damaging and oppressive. Healthism is seen in the troubling way in which we talk about and judge the ‘health’ of others. It represents, not just our toxic diet culture, but a whole host of issues relating to race, ableism and gender.

Healthism is an issue that mostly goes startlingly unchallenged; the literature is trifling given the scale of the problem. I wanted to write on the topic because it is something we are exposed to every single day, and it is affecting all of us immeasurably. Having the language to discuss healthism will not only draw attention to the ferocity of the problem but showcase some of the subtleties insuring its invisibility in our culture.

How does healthism manifest in society?

So, let’s get into the thick of it. Where is healthism and what shape does it take in society? Healthism describes our culture’s obsession with living a certain lifestyle and the way we scrutinise those who do not live up to society’s narrow view of a ‘healthy’ body. It is something that has become so embedded within our culture; it is sometimes difficult to see it festering within the corners of our social consciousness. It’s easy to become blindsided in a culture that constantly pushes for a ‘healthy lifestyle’. Healthism has created a society obsessed with closely surveying and assigning judgement to complete strangers who we deem as neglecting their health. Almost as though someone else’s choices personally affect our own lives. As if humans haven’t survived eating intuitively for all of time

We applaud those moral superiors whose bodies and lifestyles are coherent with ‘good’ health and reject everyone else as ‘greedy’ or ‘lazy’.

The problem is that healthism has a detailed and elaborate lexicon of its own, such that it is so discreet and so normalised, you might have even indulged in some of it during your lunch break. Picture this, you’ve just had a square of chocolate and on irresistible impulse you say, “Oh I’m so bad! I’ll be spending an extra twenty minutes in the gym later!”. Does this strike you as strange? This is an example of healthism.

Since the birth of nutritionism in the 1970s, government and media have obsessed over dichotomising foods into ‘good’ or ‘bad’, discouraging eaters from food they enjoy and glorifying those who resist those gluttonous, fattening foods. We applaud those moral superiors whose bodies and lifestyles are coherent with ‘good’ health and reject everyone else as ‘greedy’ or ‘lazy’. It not only makes us judge others but its affect is so choking it makes us believe we ourselves must apologise for eating anything that lands itself in the ‘bad’ category.

Why is healthism dangerous?

You might think to yourself, is this really so bad? If these foods are ‘bad’ for you then shouldn’t you make it your sole aim to avoid them and eat the ‘good’ things that keep you ‘healthy’? Well, what if your ability to preserve a ‘healthy’ (read: thin) body is out of your control? What if you’re socioeconomic background has dealt you cards that make scraping any kind of meal together near impossible? What if your metabolism is slow or you live somewhere where access to affordable nutritious food is scant? These are all factors that healthism fails to recognise.

Lifestyle is treated as a choice rather than something reflecting a compass of intersecting sources of limitation and oppression.

Health reflects more than simply choice

An example of healthism can be seen in the way hypertension is explained. In a study investigating why people of colour are reported as having greater hypertension than white people, scientists looked at salt intake, physical activity and weight. Whilst this is part of the reason for hypertension, it fails to take into account the data on racism which directly links it as a cause of stress influencing hypertension. As such, healthism negates the detrimental metabolic impact of living with racism, and other forms of oppression. People of colour are judged as living unhealthy, morally detestable lifestyles rather than as those whose poorer health is likely the result of structural racism.

Lifestyle is treated as a choice rather than something reflecting a matrix of intersecting sources of limitation and oppression. If you live in a warzone, are person of colour or struggle financially, are a woman, disabled, or experience any numerous other faces of oppression, obtaining optimal health may be impossible, or at the very least more difficult. Identifying health as moral status is definitively barbaric. Healthism can only be healthy in a society devoid of all prejudice and economic discrepancy. Healthism ignores structural injustices, securing privileged status to those who can socially and economically afford the bodies our society idealises. It’s opportune only for the highly privileged and super rich, with everyone else left to swelter, engulfed in both socioeconomic and diet shame.

Healthism encourages fatphobia

And this is of course without consulting the blatant fatphobia entrenched in this way of talking about health. What’s truly fascinating about the health phenomena is just how involved it makes us all in the pursuit of other people’s bodies. How difficult it becomes for us to hold our tongue on recommending a diet to a bigger friend, how, on the edge of seat, itching we become to comment on someone else’s eating.

“You’re still hungry?!”

“Do you really need that extra slice of cake?”

“Have you heard of this new diet; it’s called ‘ignoring your body’s basic requirements for food so you can be relieved of hearing this kind of unsolicited advice?’”

Woven into this shameful language around food is the supposition that bodies deviating from thinness are morally deficient. Healthism justifies a whole host of unusual and socially questionable behaviours we would normally cast off as rude or imposing. Bigger bodies are treated as “cautionary tales” with implicit invitation for ‘health’ enlightenment.

It’s about any body that doesn’t reflect the status-quo-avatar of the perfect ‘healthy’ body.

It’s no surprise then that in a random survey of 2,075 adults, 45 percent said they feel guilty after eating foods they like. It’s no surprise that fat people feel ostracised from gyms, restaurants, and cafes, and anything that notifies strangers to their ‘morally abhorrent’ body.

The problem is not isolated to fat people. It’s about any body that doesn’t reflect the status-quo-avatar of the perfect ‘healthy’ body which, by the way, is almost always a very sketchy indication of health. Healthism affects those with chronic illnesses, those who are ‘too skinny’, those who don’t go to the gym and those that eat food branded ‘bad’ as well.

There is no one kind of healthy

Health is not homogenous nor is it an absolute moral principle. We are all deviants of nutritional expectation and scientific prophecy. Metabolic rates and bodily requirements are vastly diverse. There is no one true constitution or rule book to follow. Healthism currently demands a standard of healthy that would be actively unhealthy for some as well as advocating a standard completely inaccessible to many. This results in the erasure of surplus bodies from our narrow view of lifestyle morality. Healthism is to the profit of the food industry as well as negligent governments who cast blame on the individual rather than approaching the issue at a grassroots level.

We must be vigilant in monitoring the way we talk about food and lifestyle.

So, when you next catch yourself with an impulse to comment on the eating habits of yourself or another person, think, who will this comment benefit? When the urge to point out the number of calories in a pizza you’ve just been served or when you express resentment towards people you think are ‘greedy’ or eat the ‘wrong’ things, think. Does this really affect me? Rather than casting judgement, should we not question why healthy foods are not more affordable? Or question why we are still perpetuating this narrative of health when it is known to lead to obsession and eating disorders for some. This cannot be the work of one individual. This needs to be the work of everyone. We must be vigilant in monitoring the way we talk about food and lifestyle. We must take a closer look at the way our government is tackling health in poorer areas and representations of body image in the media. We must start to consider the different socioeconomic backgrounds of others and how this imparts on their ability to eat and live. We must unshackle ourselves from this shame around food.

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Featured image courtesy of Artem Podrex via Pexel. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.