What Is Healthism? The Hidden Politics of “Wholesome Residing”

It’s protected to say that most individuals wish to be healthy. Nobody enjoys being sick, but it surely’s greater than that—sickness, whether or not acute or power, impacts high quality of life.

Defining Well being Past the Absence of Sickness

Well being, after all, is extra than simply the dearth of sickness. In accordance with 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 as we speak. 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 advanced right into a broader need to dwell longer and higher than earlier generations.

A few of this variation stems from advances in science and our rising understanding of the human physique and what it must thrive.

Take bodily health for instance. Earlier than the Fifties, the common American didn’t train usually, if in any respect. By the late Seventies, nonetheless, train as a behavior for well being had gone mainstream.

Now, health is an enormous world business—valued at round $87 billion—with countless methods to take part. You may work out at dwelling, be part of a gymnasium, take courses in a studio or on-line, go high-intensity or low-impact, elevate weights or stick with 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 develop into more and more politicized. An increasing number of, it’s framed as an particular person duty moderately than a collective mission supported by households, communities, governments, and well being techniques.

Some argue that good well being isn’t a proper however a private responsibility—and that poor well being displays ethical failure, the results of unhealthy habits moderately than structural boundaries which might be out of their management.

This ideology is called healthism.

Healthism in Motion

Even in case you don’t know the time period, you’ve possible seen healthism at work.

• In the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, some folks rejected masks and vaccines—public health measures that profit people and communities—in favor of unproven options like vitamin C, zinc, or Ivermectin, which have been framed as particular person fixes.

• Influencers gas healthism by promoting supplements, liver cleanses, or fearmongering about seed oils—insisting that in case you comply with their protocols, you’ll obtain “optimum well being.”

• 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 prompt that individuals who smoke, drink soda, or eat doughnuts shouldn’t anticipate others to pay for his or her medical care.

As Michael Cannon, Director of Well being Coverage Research at the Cato Institute later informed The Washington Put up: “Individuals ought to bear the price of their very own unhealthy selections, not simply because it’s fallacious to pressure different folks to bear these prices, however as a result of then they’re much less more likely to make unhealthy selections.”

That’s healthism in a nutshell.

Healthism and Programs of Oppression

Healthism doesn’t function in isolation. It intersects with—and reinforces—different techniques of oppression similar to 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 Undertaking explains: “Systemic oppression exists on the degree of establishments (dangerous insurance policies and practices) and throughout constructions (training, well being, transportation, economic system, and so forth.) which might be interconnected and reinforcing over time.”

Healthism, then, turns into a type of physique fascism—a system that dictates acceptable life-style 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 means of private life-style decisions.

Crawford acknowledged well being as inherently political. He understood that well being outcomes mirror socio-economic divisions, now known as the social determinants of well being—”the circumstances by which persons are born, develop, dwell, work, and age, in addition to their entry to energy, cash, and assets” (as outlined by WHO).

These determinants embody genetics, revenue, training, surroundings, and sort of labor—all of which play vital 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 an alternative to the establishments and legal guidelines that perpetuate inequality.

Well being, Capitalism, and Social Management

Healthism additionally acts as social management—demanding folks conform to particular life or physique beliefs to be deemed “worthy” of well being.

For instance, when RFK Jr. claimed “our altering meals provide” is “poisoning” Individuals and used that reasoning to argue towards 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-about “wholesome,” we’re informed to eat “wholesome meals,” train usually, 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, usually 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 “appropriately.” However how is a dad or mum who works two jobs to make ends meet and assist their household purported to put aside the time to hit the gymnasium on a regular basis? What in case your city has just one grocery retailer they usually hardly ever inventory any respectable produce? These are realities confronted by many in the USA. 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 simply accessible to some, even whereas all are anticipated to realize 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 advanced and typically contain elements which might be outdoors of our personal private management.

What RFK Jr and so lots of his devoted MAHA followers promote is the concept everybody ought to have the ability to overcome all of the social determinants of well being by means of good decisions and laborious 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 huge advantages. However to say that these issues are equally accessible to everybody and, on their very own, are sufficient to beat all the socio-economic boundaries to well being that persons are born into and dwell with is grossly out of contact with actuality.

Healthism turns into fascist when advantages, rights, entry, and inclusion are reserved for many who match a slim very best—echoing eugenics-like considering. Solely those that make the “proper” decisions, look a sure approach, 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 boundaries. Meaning:

• Common healthcare: Accessible, reasonably priced, and accessible to all.

• Environmental justice: Clear air, water, and soil, particularly in low-income and concrete communities.

• Financial assist: Common Fundamental Revenue (UBI) to scale back monetary stress and increase 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 basis reason behind transphobia, ableism, racism, anti-fatness, or misogyny—however it may be a software to implement all of them. That’s partially as a result of healthism assumes a enjoying subject that merely isn’t there. And when it stubbornly attributes societal and group outcomes to ‘particular person decisions,’ it reinforces the biases going through marginalized communities.”

Closing 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 persons are worthy of well being—and others are usually not.

Right here’s to redefining well being with no consideration, not a privilege. –Naomi