Episode 47 Health-ism: good or bad?

What is Health-ism?

I've noticed this word being used more regularly, here is my take on it....

In this culture there are unhealthy obsessions with health and unhealthy acceptance or maybe even affirmation and encouragement of poor health; in my opinion, both are a problematic.

In this episode, I explore health-ism, is it good or bad? I look for a sense of balance; challenge the polarising views that paint individuals either as helpless victims or as solely to blame for their health issues.

Learn more about Fiona's speaking, radio and consultation services at Informed Health: https://informedhealth.com.au/

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Credit for the music used in this podcast:

The Beat of Nature

Music by Olexy from Pixabay

Transcript

Fiona Kane: 0:31

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection podcast with Fiona Kane. I'm your host, Fiona Kane. Today I'm going to be talking about something that I've just noticed that's come up, a wording in language that's come up recently Well, for a little while, but I've just noticed it come up a lot lately and that's called healthism. So it's the health system is. So I'm sort of just reading here a definition. The first definition that kind of pops up on the internet and it says it's a belief that sees health as property and responsibility of an individual and ranks the personal pursuit of health above everything else. So it's a belief system that sees health as the property and responsibility of the individual and ranks that top. Another one here is like a set of attitudes and beliefs that health is the most important pursuit in life and that it's a personal responsibility of the individual and solely within that person's control. So what I've noticed is that the term healthism comes up to attack a lot of wellness movements and this is one of those things where I would say two things can be true at the same time and, like everything else, it's all about the how far something goes right. So sometimes what happens? Okay, so just go back to that, just so I can let you understand what I'm talking about. So it says here that you know it's assuming that it's personal responsibility that you.

Fiona Kane: 2:20

It's solely in your control, your health is solely in your control, and of course, it's not solely in your control because there is something called genetics. I talk about it often on this podcast. I talk about the difference between genetics and epigenetics. So genetics is the bit that you can't control, but epigenetics you have a lot of control over, and then, essentially, genetics is the load of gun and epigenetics is whether or not you pull the trigger. So the truth is we do have a lot of control, but we don't have it all. And it also depends on the condition, because there are some conditions that are just terrible, things that are afflicted on people that they certainly didn't do anything to ask for and they can't do anything about. All is limited what they can do about it. So so there are some things like that that I just, you know, almost impossible to control, if not impossible. And then there are things that there's a lot of lifestyle diseases that we have, now that there is a certain level of personal responsibility. Now, the thing about personal responsibility as well, as it does require people to have education and it does require people to have access. So you can't necessarily take personal, fully personal responsibility if you don't have education or access to the education and all the healthy foods, all the healthy whatever it is, exercise or whatever the health thing is.

Fiona Kane: 3:59

And I suppose this fundamentally is the argument, that sort of where it kind of almost becomes politics is that there's there's people who kind of just believe that you know everything that happens to people, they're victims and it's everything's about being a victim and and it's not your fault and you shouldn't be blamed and you shouldn't have to, you know, be shamed for having a problem. And then on the other, on the other end, we've got the kind of you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you know you're responsible for everything, it's all self responsibility, get on with it. And I would just say that there's probably there's a middle ground here somewhere. You know it's not one, it's not the other. There's a middle ground. So my thing has always been to take responsibility for the things that you can. So I think personal responsibility is really important and I think it's actually really empowering. So if we think that we're just victims of everything and that everything just happens to us, then it just does nothing there, doesn't empower us in any way to change it or make it better or do anything different. So I actually think the idea of kind of just, you know, oh, you're a victim, full stop, I think is not helpful.

Fiona Kane: 5:09

However, the idea of kind of it's your fault and you're to blame and you should be shamed, and that kind of thing is also not helpful, especially when it's used indiscriminately, as in. It's used in cases where it's absolutely not that person's fault. And that's the thing too with okay, like I said before, it's about the balance, right. So I think that what's happening swings and roundabouts, I don't know what's happening is sometimes we do one thing and we go a bit too far, and then we overcorrect and we go the other way, right, so nothing's your fault, nothing's your responsibility, you're a victim thing. It's a very sort of compassion type approach. I would actually say that it can be a toxic compassion.

Fiona Kane: 6:01

When it's a toxic compassion, to me is where it's all about oh, they're there, it's all right, okay, and you're not responsible for anything, you can't do anything, you're a perpetual victim, and I'm just going to pat you and, just like you know, affirm you and make you feel okay, right, I think that is toxic. I also think the everything's your fault, you know, up by your bootstraps off you go and you're not taking enough personal responsibility and that's why you got XYZ. I don't think that's a good thing either, right, but what we do is we kind of do swing back and forth, it's like one or the other, and so what I'm seeing now is I'm seeing, you know, I've seen healthism, I've seen it happening and I've seen that kind of really hard line stuff. I think, where I see it the most, I've seen it a few different places, so you obviously will see it in something like vegan diets.

Fiona Kane: 6:56

So there's people who will do a vegan diet, who feel that that's the best thing for them. For whatever list of reasons that they believe is the reason for them, they'll get on with it and they'll do it, and that's just their personal thing. And then there's people who do the vegan diet, who are real, absolute puritans, who make sure the whole world knows about it, and the whole world knows that they are the most pure person on the planet and nobody is as pure as them, and they should all. Could you know that? They are all wrong and spiritually below beneath them and healthy In every way. They are superior to you because they are vegan, right, so not every vegan is like this, but there are vegans who are like that.

Fiona Kane: 7:39

It's not just vegans, so I'm not only picking on vegans, but it's where I see it. A lot it also happens in other areas. So there's people who are kind of like oh, everything I eat is organic and it's biodynamic, and the moon's in Pisces when it gets picked in a full moon with whatever, and I don't eat any chemicals and I don't eat any GMOs and I don't eat and they can sometimes be bit full on too. Again, if it's a choice, like sure, I actually personally think taking personal responsibility and trying to eat well and look after yourself and all the rest can be and usually is a healthy thing, that's a good thing, right. But it's when it sort of becomes this absolute obsession that can't see anything else and it's so obsessed about it. But I would argue that when you become that obsessed by it that it's probably not good for your health, like with that level of obsession.

Fiona Kane: 8:45

So, while it's great to avoid pesticides and this and that and I'm not going to argue about like there's so many things in our system, in our dietary system, in our waterways, in our air, whatever that are problematic or can be problematic, and there's so many things in food that are problematic, however, trying to overcome every single one of them and it's like they kind of defeat each other. It's like you should have brown rice, because brown rice is the most healthy thing. However, brown rice has more sort of lectins and it's harder to digest, right? And also, oh, by the way, it's high in arsenic because it's grown in certain area. Blah, blah, blah, right? So it's like well, which is which? Do you do brown rice or do you do? And, by the way, I do basmati. But if you do brown rice, that's fine, whatever it is for you.

Fiona Kane: 9:37

But we kind of get it's the same with wheat is bad and unhealthy and no one should have it. No, that's not true. It's just not good for people who have a problem with gluten and a problem with wheat, which includes me. But it doesn't mean that everybody shouldn't eat gluten and everybody shouldn't eat wheat, or that this pesticide or that pesticide no, I'm purer than you because I don't eat any pesticides that's like, do you do you? And and it's okay to have an awareness around those things and, if you can, if you've got access to financially, physically, whatever you grow yourself, whatever, but if you've got access to things that are organic and beautiful and healthy and all that stuff, it's amazing and it's wonderful and good on you, and the more that the world you know, the more that we have access to those things, that is great. However, not everyone has that access.

Fiona Kane: 10:31

So I think judging people or shaming them for not having that or for not doing that or what you mean you don't activate all of your nuts. Oh my God, how could you do that? You know. So you know, healthism is a thing I get. It's a thing, so I will make fun of it just as much as anybody else. However, the other side of the scale, which is nobody's responsible for anything and and anyone who says anything about personal responsibility, that's just healthism and we have to avoid that because that just causes eating disorders and blah, blah, blah, that's not true either. So I'm not saying that healthism can't like health.

Fiona Kane: 11:14

Obviously, healthism would be attached to mental health issues and eating disorders. Obviously they go together, because if you're obsessed about a certain diet or whatever, then you're the sort of person who's more likely to have one of those disorders? Yes, of course. However, caring about your health and wanting to eat well and wanting to look after yourself is not an eating disorder. It can become one. A lot of things can become disordered if we do them too much or we overdo it or whatever. So it certainly can become one. But, on the same side of things, when you look at the statistics for how many of us have diet and lifestyle related health issues that we could fix and that we could get better and we wouldn't all, there wouldn't be so much fatty liver and insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes and all of the things heart disease and all of those things which much of it I'm not saying all of it, but a lot of it is diet and lifestyle related.

Fiona Kane: 12:20

To say that those people aren't responsible and we shouldn't have to do anything and we can't do self-responsibility is not helpful, because a lot of those people can do a lot. Most people are able to walk around the block. They can do that. I'm saying everybody. There's always an exception to everything. However, just saying you're not responsible, you can't do anything about it, you're a victim, is not helpful, and I think that the healthism thing.

Fiona Kane: 12:50

I think there's a few things that have. It's like with everything there's kind of a lot of things. There's a level of truth at something and then it becomes something else or it just goes overboard or whatever. But what I've seen in I've been practicing nutritionists now for 16, 17 years I can't remember now a long time and what I've seen is that when you do look at things like where our food pyramid comes from and who funds what and how the Dietitians Association for many years was funded by food companies and how the Heart Foundation they used to have a Heart Foundation tick in Australia which supposedly meant the food was healthy but it was absolutely bought and paid for thing. It did work within their dietary rules, but their dietary rules didn't care about sugar but only cared about saturated fat and meat and things like that. So they will kind of create these guidelines that they use that are health guidelines and the health guidelines are very much Food companies.

Fiona Kane: 14:02

People who make money from it have a lot of say in those things. The guidelines aren't necessarily a good quality in the first place. Then they use the guidelines that they do things like they add extra fiber to get an extra star. Now it's a health star rating system. They add some fiber or something in to get an extra star. You end up seeing things like you know Nutri-Grain would be higher than a piece of salmon. It has a better quality food, no right. Well Up and Go, which is just all chemical concoction.

Fiona Kane: 14:35

No, so what I've seen over the years is I've just seen a lot of money and a lot of politics in the health industry, and you also see it with drug companies. You only have to get onto Netflix and watch some of those specials about the drug companies and how the pain opioid crisis that they created and the fact that, for example, with drug companies, they don't have to like they do say 100 studies and say 50 of them or 90 of them, show that the drug didn't work. They don't actually have to use those ones, they only have to use the ones that worked in their favor. So they only use the ones that worked in their favor until the FDA or whoever it is that's who it is in the US I can't remember who it is here Not therapeutic goods, whoever it is anyway but they just submit to them that this is what works and this is how the drug worked, and basically the authorities kind of just agree with them and go oh okay, good, you said it works. Okay, it works and we believe you.

Fiona Kane: 15:45

And there's this sort of this revolving door system between people who are involved in food and drug administration and the food and drug industry. So these people kind of approve things and then they get jobs. So all I'm trying to say is there's a reason that people have gotten quite paranoid about the systems and money and who makes money out of things and where is this advice coming from and who's funding it? And studies you see a study and then you see who funded it. So many of those vegan studies are funded by people with vested interests in the industry who make the fake meat and things like that, and so you know that they're not going to publish something that doesn't have the data that they need. And, unfortunately, scientists these days scientists if they want to have a job they've pretty much got to in a lot of different topics, not just the food and other industries they pretty much have to go along with the accepted position.

Fiona Kane: 16:46

So all I'm trying to say is there's a lot of dodgy stuff that's happened over the years in the health industry and there are a lot of people who do make a lot of money out of misery, out of selling people ultra processed foods and getting people on medications to make up for the ultra processed foods and the lack of exercise and the stress and all the other things that are going on. And then you need another medication to make up for that medication, another one to make up for that medication, and then they sell you the comfort food to make you feel better and then you need more medication. So there is a lot of. I think there was at one stage. I can't remember which company it was, it might have been like Gloria Marshall. I can't remember which company it was, but one of the weight loss companies also owned like Nestle. I can't remember now, but it's owned by the same company. So they've basically got the weight loss company and the fast food and it's like, okay, perfect, you've got the perfect system there. Make them sick, get them to lose weight, make them sick, get them to lose weight.

Fiona Kane: 17:48

So, yeah, there is a reason that people get quite purist and get quite frustrated with the system, because when you look around and really look into the sort of crap that people get away with behind the scenes and you think that they wouldn't be able to get away with they do. So there's a reason that people kind of get a bit more extreme and get a bit more paranoid and kind of don't believe a lot of the health information right. And I've seen it over the years like we kind of had to sort of push the heart foundations guidelines out of town because they were just terrible and they were just doing dreadful things essentially for money and that's just not okay and our health star system that we've got now not much better but anyway. So what I'm trying to say is there is a reason that people get that way and there's a reason that people got that way. It's not as simple as you can believe everything that you get given a food pyramid or whatever it is, and that's how it is and that's perfect, and I think South Park did a great episode on the food pyramid. With it. It chips it upside down, which is probably a bit more accurate and how it should be.

Fiona Kane: 18:57

However, there's a lot of systems in place, unfortunately, that don't support your health, that do support a lot of people making a lot of money out of you, out of you not being well. So the people who are super duper, anti-healthism or calling things healthism that aren't are. They also have a vested interest. They kind of want to have victims right. So essentially, the victim industry needs victims. If you get better, you're not a victim anymore. So there's a certain type of industry and a certain type of area in life that's supportive of everyone's a victim. You can't do anything about it. But poor you, whatever it is, and that means that it takes away your power, right. Then there's other side of things where you can take personal responsibility, where it is true, where it is your responsibility, and you can do a lot and change your life and make a difference right. So I just think it's like don't buy that health.

Fiona Kane: 20:07

Everything that talks about health, personal responsibility, is healthism and bad and evil. If that healthism person is saying if you don't do this diet, blah, blah, blah, and your diet caused your cancer and you're going to die because you didn't do my, you beat diet or whatever, that's not healthy. So personal responsibility is a really really good thing and learning about health and nutrition and exercise and all of those things and supporting your body to be as healthy as you can is a really really good thing. If it becomes an extreme sport where it's making you really, really stressed and making you really super judgmental of other people and it's about shaming everybody else and you think you're better than everybody else, or if it becomes. There's some of these kind of billionaire type people who that's all they do now. They're so terrified of dying. There's one I can't remember but he was spending I can't remember what it is now but their whole day, every day, is about longevity, about living longer and all this science around not aging and all that kind of stuff.

Fiona Kane: 21:15

It's good that some people are doing some of those studies and things like that Great. But it's like, oh my God, these people are so obsessed with that, they're so afraid of death that they're not living. So I think there's like what's underneath this healthism when people get really extreme, I think it's a fear of death for a lot of people. Those people is a fear of aging, because aging is not treated that kindly in, certainly in the Western world, especially women. People are afraid of death because we don't understand it in a healthy way.

Fiona Kane: 21:45

I've done previous episodes where I've talked about death and dying before. You might want to pop back and see that episode or listen to that episode. So I think that there's a lot of people who are scared and they're jumping into healthism as a way of managing their anxiety whether it's their anxiety, whatever it's about, whether it's about the planet, whether it's about their health or their potential death or whatever and that's not healthy. However, there is also a whole bunch of people saying nothing is anybody's fault and everybody's a victim and it's all just happening to them Not true in lots of situations? So it's one of the again it comes back to where's the balance.

Fiona Kane: 22:23

Like, you want to live your life, enjoy your life, and you don't want to have to be. You get obsessed about things, but you also want to learn things that work for you when that support your health, because it's very hard to live a fruitful, happy life when you're not well. So if there's anything you can do to improve your health, then that's a good thing. So it's not blaming you for every single thing that's ever happened to you, because you always hear me in my podcast. I always say there's a percentage of what that you have control over and there's a percentage that stuff happens right. That is just life. That's the reality of it.

Fiona Kane: 23:00

So, anyway, that's kind of my idea about kind of healthism. It's like I think it's. It's a handy way to attack anything that is to do with self-responsibility. I don't think that's good, but it can also be really extreme and really problematic. That's not good either. I think it's just getting that balance. It's like responsibility where you can do the best you can to support your health, but also not blaming on and shaming and hating on people for the first things that are totally not in their control.

Fiona Kane: 23:27

And you know, even if they are in a control this is getting into sort of a whole other topic but even if they are in a control, like if someone's someone smokes or they, you know, like a lot of the generation, like I know, my parents' generation, most of them smoked and they were actually doctors used to smoke and tell them what was healthy and tell them it was a good thing and it's a good way to manage your weight and it's a good way to manage your nerves and blah, blah, blah. So these people were brought up with that and now people are shaming them because they're getting lung cancer or whatever and, like, I think, as a of course, you know, I've seen it in my family. I've seen people in my family who smoke, who died from cancers were a bit of lung cancer or breast cancer or this or that. And I've seen, you know, people in my family who had like drug issues or alcohol issues or whatever, and and meet sort of deaths that probably related a lot to their lifestyle. Am I going to judge them about it? No, who am I? I'm not God or whoever's in charge. I'm just not that person.

Fiona Kane: 24:28

So I just think that we have to be careful about making judgments. We have to help people, like we have to educate people and encourage them to take personal responsibility where it will be helpful. We also have to know that when we start getting to the realm of shaming people and blaming people for everything, that's not helpful either. So I think it's let's just look for a bit of balance here, right, let's just look for a bit of balance and be kind, because you have no idea what's got that person to that place and that point or why they made the decision they did or what was going on there.

Fiona Kane: 25:09

So that's where I do sort of do support the anti-healthies and people, because I actually do think that there's lots of things that go into why someone ends up where they are, and judging them is not nice and I hope that when I get to the end of my life, that no one makes judgments on me either. So I just think it's glass houses and all that we shouldn't be judging other people. At the same time, there's a lot you can do to support your health and in many cases, there's some things you can't, some things you can. However, that knowing that there's things you can do and there's some things you can make a difference with, I think is really really empowering. And I think empowering people is, you know, empowering people to make their own choices but understand what choices might benefit them and what might not. And that's pretty much what I do in my business.

Fiona Kane: 25:59

In my clinic, I help people learn what's going to work for them, and we play around and see what works for them and then they decide well, this worked for me, so I want to keep doing this. This didn't work for me, so I don't want to care. Whatever it is, but they make that decision. It's up to them. Anyway, I will leave it at that. Now, please don't forget to like, subscribe. If you're on rumble or YouTube, you can comment and please share. I just really subscribing makes a big difference because it makes people pay more attention and see my podcast or hear my podcast and, of course, sharing it, just telling your friends about it. I 'd really appreciate your help with that and I hope you have a great week and I'll talk to you again soon. Thanks, bye.