How is it that the US mass media can simultaneously fret about the fraction of people who are obese, and proclaim foods or activities that promote a lower body mass to be “healthy”, yet simultaneously claim that, for women at least, obesity is “healthy”? It’s because the word “healthy” is not, and has not been for decades, a semantically neutral one. “Healthy” is one of the modern signifiers of moral purity, and “unhealthy” = “sinful” (as openly proclaimed on the packaging of both “decadent” and “guilt-free” desserts). So even though obesity is objectively sub-optimal for “wellness” by medical standards, using that word in front of the Great Unwashed signifies a moral judgment on the overweight person. In order to conform to the current rules of “wokeness”, media must proclaim that obesity is “healthy” when what they actually mean is, “Obese people are not lesser humans, and it isn’t your job to shame them for being fat. It’s their business, not yours”. In the popular media, “wellness” isn’t an objective word but a declaration of moral fitness, a judgement on a person’s character. It would certainly be a lot better for society as a whole to stop pretending that illness is due to divine retribution for an “unhealthy” (read: sinful) “lifestyle” (a word long used by crypto-moralists to judge others, especially queers and sex workers). But given the considerable energy US culture has invested in that myth (cf preachers who blame hurricanes on same-sex marriage, and busybodies who cast shame on, or even call the cops on, people for visiting their friends against politicians’ “orders”), that’s unlikely to happen anytime before the collapse of the Empire.
Sin in Disguise
January 8, 2021 by Maggie McNeill
6 Responses
Leave a Reply
Visit my bookstore
This Month
Old Posts
Call me
Become a Blog Patron
If you want to donate but don't want a recurring charge, you can send any amount you like via PayPal to my email address (see below). Be sure to include a note so I can thank you!Contact Maggie
Maggie on Twitter
My TweetsBoring but necessary legal stuff
Well said, and I gave up on nutritionists years ago. Especially considering that it was Ancel Keys who was responsible for the obesity problem in the first place.
https://oklahoman.com/article/5518740/sugar-research-provides-a-cautionary-tale-about-claims-of-settled-science
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEc-x7jrvMQ&w=560&h=315%5D
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpALLBqcYTE&w=560&h=315%5D
^ These are a must read and see. Too bad when you show those to the JREF forums, the Skeptical Raptor, “Rational” Wiki, or the vast majority of skeptic channels on YouTube or Vimeo; you would be met with irrational anger instead of candor.
Wow. This is all so true. If anyone doubts it is, just look at the debate around “obesity”, “fat”, “body image”, “health”, “wellness”, etc. through this lens. When one does that, one suddenly can comprehend otherwise incomprehensible rhetoric.
The view that we should not fat-shame individuals is partisan bias masquerading as politeness. If other somewhat risky private behavior (such as smoking or not wearing a mask, both of which do impose trivially tiny risks on others but so does obesity) were treated with similar deference, then I would join in the chorus against fat-shaming.
True. Obesity can result from many causes, ranging from metabolic disorders to simply eating too much and exercising too little. But obesity is definitely not “healthy”, and some degree of obesity can be life threatening. That’s why it is called “morbid obesity”.
Long before “wokeness” and political correctness were widespread, Arthur Godfrey recorded a hit song in 1947. Today it is probably considered “fat shaming”, although upon close listening it actually only expresses a personal preference.
Food and diet seem to have become a focus of moral social signaling over the past few decades. The latest that makes me cringe is “clean eating” or “clean food”. You can practically hear the moral superiority dripping off those words. Ask what is meant by “clean” and you will get another list of vague terms like “healthy” used just as Maggie describes.
Well, facts and judgments by the fact-adverse are becoming more and more disconnected. The last stage in this particular case is probably that medical professionals do not even dare to tell those the truth that really want to know where they stand. Facts are facts. They are not political. They are not xx-ist. They are not up for discussion (except in very rare case and then the discussion is experts-only). They can be very unpleasant though. And to make matters worse, a lot of unscrupulous people these days claim things are “facts” when they just want to give more weight to their personal opinions.