Healthism | The New ‘Ism’ On The Block
In age of ever-growing discontent, avoiding the minefields of being labelled as an ‘-ist’ and ‘-phobic’ is necessary to keep your reputation and career. For those of us who don’t spend all day online, the current cultural revolution is tedious, constantly shifting and difficult to keep up with; however there’s a new privilege in town, and one that will affect those of us currently untouched by the raging gender and race wars.
Surely there can’t be many more things to fight or to rail against? Well, that’s what I thought until I came across an Instagram post (shared above with permission from @slowdownfarmstead) of slides from a lecture given by a dietician at an American University. ‘The Party’ has now set its sights on people who homecook their own food and ferment their own produce. You’re surely not making yoghurt or kimchi for health reasons, but, fuelled by unconscious bias, to exercise your own elitist privilege.
We are told that health and wellness is just a social construct; an idea created and accepted by a society and not rooted in any meaningful foundations. Oh, and not only is health a social construct, but personal responsibility and accountability are two unfashionable traits so we all just do and eat what makes us feel good because we’ve somehow managed to transcend the laws of cause and effect. Let’s sprinkle some moral relativism into the mix - you know, the idea of ‘it’s true for me, if I believe it’ - and a pinch of radical equality (in status, rights, or opportunities) and you’ve got yourself a rather heady brew.
The mind boggles as to where and how this can be twisted. For instance, if someone doesn’t have access cabbage and salt is it right for me to make my own sauerkraut? Or is this a sign of my own oppressive tendencies?
So the focus shifts on policing ourselves and others instead of focusing on coming up with creative solutions to the problems of food deserts (rural or urban areas that have limited access to affordable and nutritious food) and the disparity of the cost of junk food compared to ‘real’ food (often as a result of subsidies from corporations lobbying Governments). Ideas that start out with the best of intentions end up developing into a crabs-in-a-bucket mentality; if I can’t have it neither can you.
Meanwhile, the real villains of the piece are ignored and Big Agriculture alongside global transnational corporations (Pepsi, McDonalds etc) continue to supply the world with nutritionally empty food and drink as local farms, Community Supported Agriculture and local producers don’t get a look in. Councils don’t make it easy for small businesses to set up and sell food which is why there’s barely a butchers or fishmongers in the UK highstreet anymore, yet pound shops aplenty. In some towns it really impossible to even find healthy food.
We’ve forgotten we’re marinating in a sea of corporations, many of which do untold damage on a global and local scale. They have powerful PR firms to hide behind and love to show how kind they are; look, they’ve changed their logo to a rainbow! They really do care about us! However they just want a slice of the woke pie and will shapeshift to suit the current climate. So, with the advent of healthism, we will forget about the invisible enemy amongst us and focus on the dastardly individual and their choices; we will shame those who take their health into their own hands.
As I hope you can tell, we are not in favour of a radicalised, emotion-driven response to complex issues. Utilising the tool of public shaming is a way to keep people in line and is a brutal tactic that bears only bitter fruit. Without dialogue, debate and polite disagreement we face being divided in every area of life. I wanted to share this with you as to be forearmed is forewarned.
What are the most common misconceptions about furniture free? Well these are my top three!