It’s protected to say that most individuals need to be wholesome. Nobody enjoys being sick, however it’s greater than that—sickness, whether or not acute or persistent, impacts high quality of life.
Defining Well being Past the Absence of Sickness
Well being, in fact, is extra than simply the shortage of sickness. Based on the World Well being Group (WHO), well being is outlined as “a state of full bodily, psychological, and social well-being and never merely the absence of illness or infirmity.”
This definition, established in 1946, stays related in the present day. However our relationship to well being has shifted.
How Our Pursuit of Well being Has Modified
What was as soon as centered totally on stopping sickness and infectious illness has developed right into a broader want to reside longer and higher than earlier generations.
A few of this alteration stems from advances in science and our rising understanding of the human physique and what it must thrive.
Take bodily health for example. Earlier than the Nineteen Fifties, the typical American didn’t train commonly, if in any respect. By the late Seventies, nevertheless, train as a behavior for well being had gone mainstream.
Now, health is a large international trade—valued at round $87 billion—with infinite methods to take part. You may work out at residence, be a part of a health club, take lessons in a studio or on-line, go high-intensity or low-impact, carry weights or follow cardio.
Health is not only a passion or behavior—it’s a cultural expectation.
When Well being Turns into Political
Over the previous decade, well being has turn out to be more and more politicized. Increasingly more, it’s framed as an particular person duty fairly than a collective mission supported by households, communities, governments, and well being techniques.
Some argue that good well being just isn’t a proper however a private responsibility—and that poor well being displays ethical failure, the results of unhealthy habits fairly than structural obstacles which can be out of their management.
This ideology is called healthism.
Healthism in Motion
Even should you don’t know the time period, you’ve probably seen healthism at work.
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Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, some individuals rejected masks and vaccines—public well being measures that profit people and communities—in favor of unproven alternate options like vitamin C, zinc, or Ivermectin, which have been framed as particular person fixes.
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Influencers gasoline healthism by promoting dietary supplements, liver cleanses, or fearmongering about seed oils—insisting that should you comply with their protocols, you’ll obtain “optimum well being.”
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In politics, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made headlines in April 2025 when, throughout Senate affirmation hearings, he refused to say that healthcare is a human proper. As an alternative, he steered that individuals who smoke, drink soda, or eat doughnuts shouldn’t count on others to pay for his or her medical care.
As Michael Cannon, Director of Well being Coverage Research at the Cato Institute later instructed The Washington Put up: “Individuals ought to bear the price of their very own unhealthy choices, not simply because it’s unsuitable to pressure different individuals to bear these prices, however as a result of then they’re much less prone to make unhealthy choices.”
That’s healthism in a nutshell.
Healthism and Methods of Oppression
Healthism doesn’t function in isolation. It intersects with—and reinforces—different techniques of oppression resembling racism, sexism, classism, and ableism. These techniques protect the established order in any respect prices, encouraging hierarchies and biases that create unequal entry to energy and privilege.
The Nationwide Fairness Challenge explains: “Systemic oppression exists on the stage of establishments (dangerous insurance policies and practices) and throughout buildings (schooling, well being, transportation, financial system, and many others.) which can be interconnected and reinforcing over time.”
Healthism, then, turns into a type of physique fascism—a system that dictates acceptable way of life decisions, rewards compliance, and punishes deviation. It suits neatly into the framework of different techniques designed to distinguish and designate energy to a choose few.
The place the Time period “Healthism” Got here From
The time period “healthism” was coined in 1980 by sociologist Robert Crawford, who noticed a rising cultural fixation on well being—particularly by private way of life decisions.
Crawford acknowledged well being as inherently political. He understood that well being outcomes replicate socio-economic divisions, now known as the social determinants of well being—”the circumstances by which individuals are born, develop, reside, work, and age, in addition to their entry to energy, cash, and assets” (as outlined by WHO).
These determinants embody genetics, revenue, schooling, surroundings, and kind of labor—all of which play important roles in figuring out your well being standing.
Recognizing structural points like classism, racism, or sexism would shift blame from people to the establishments and legal guidelines that perpetuate inequality.
Healthism dismisses the social determinants of well being and ignore the inequities in accessing good well being in favor of the concept private decisions alone dictate well being outcomes.
If the systemic problems with classism, racism, sexism have been included within the causes of poor well being, the blame would shift from solely the person and as a substitute to the establishments and legal guidelines that perpetuate inequality.
Well being, Capitalism, and Social Management
Healthism additionally acts as social management—demanding individuals conform to particular existence or physique beliefs to be deemed “worthy” of well being.
For instance, when RFK Jr. claimed “our altering meals provide” is “poisoning” People and used that reasoning to argue in opposition to common healthcare, he was reinforcing healthism: tying ethical worth to particular person well being decisions whereas dismissing systemic inequities.
However in a for-profit healthcare system, not everybody can entry care. Not everybody can afford it. Well being, subsequently, turns into a privilege—not a common proper.
Capitalism additional complicates this image. To be thought of “wholesome,” we’re instructed to eat “wholesome meals,” train commonly, get good sleep, have time to spend with our family and friends—yet capitalism requires us to work lengthy hours, the place many are underpaid and barely making sufficient to scrape by regardless of working full-time hours. Paid trip time is restricted, typically to 2 weeks or much less –however for a lot of, paid depart isn’t assured.
Healthism promotes the concept “all of us have the identical 24 hours in a day” and it’s merely a matter of selecting to allocate that point “accurately.” However how is a dad or mum who works two jobs to make ends meet and assist their household imagined to put aside the time to hit the health club on a regular basis? What in case your city has just one grocery retailer and so they hardly ever inventory any first rate produce? These are realities confronted by many in america. We don’t all have equal entry to wholesome choices or the assets to have interaction in wholesome actions.
In actuality, good well being is barely out there to some, even whereas all are anticipated to attain it.
Why Healthism Feels Fascist
The American “pull your self up by the bootstraps” ideology fuels the concept good well being is solely a mirrored image of particular person alternative. However in actuality, private habits don’t exist in a vacuum as a result of the contributors to well being standing are multi-faceted and complicated and typically contain components which can be outdoors of our personal private management.
What RFK Jr and so lots of his trustworthy MAHA followers promote is the concept everybody ought to have the ability to overcome all of the social determinants of well being by good decisions and onerous work. However that place is a privileged one.
Nobody is arguing that folks shouldn’t be maintaining a healthy diet meals, exercising, getting high quality sleep, and fostering good relationships. All of us agree that these behaviors have monumental advantages. However to say that these issues are equally accessible to everybody and, on their very own, are sufficient to beat the entire socio-economic obstacles to well being that individuals are born into and reside with is grossly out of contact with actuality.
Healthism turns into fascist when advantages, rights, entry, and inclusion are reserved for individuals who match a slim perfect—echoing eugenics-like considering. Solely those that make the “proper” decisions, look a sure method, or meet inflexible requirements are granted security, entry to authorities companies, and freedom.
A Higher Path: Democratizing Well being
If we would like actual well being fairness, we should look past private decisions and handle systemic obstacles. Which means:
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Common healthcare: Accessible, reasonably priced, and out there to all.
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Environmental justice: Clear air, water, and soil, particularly in low-income and concrete communities.
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Financial assist: Common Primary Earnings (UBI) to cut back monetary stress and develop entry to more healthy decisions.
These actions and insurance policies could be a begin towards democratizing well being and leveling the enjoying subject.
As writer Aubrey Gordon wrote in Self journal in 2020:
“To be clear, healthism isn’t the foundation reason for transphobia, ableism, racism, anti-fatness, or misogyny—however it may be a software to implement all of them. That’s partly as a result of healthism assumes a enjoying subject that merely isn’t there. And when it stubbornly attributes societal and neighborhood outcomes to ‘particular person decisions,’ it reinforces the biases dealing with marginalized communities.”
Remaining Ideas
If we would like more healthy communities, we should confront the social determinants of well being and dismantle techniques of oppression that deny entry to care and wholesome choices. Well being can’t be lowered to particular person decisions whereas ignoring the inequities baked into our society.
In any other case, we’re successfully saying some individuals are worthy of well being—and others aren’t.
Right here’s to redefining well being for granted, not a privilege. –Naomi
