Yesterday, I was talking about my frustrations with the BMI and fatphobia in general. The talk of diets and how women bond over moaning over how fat they were. Er, I did not talk about the last point, but it’s definitely a thing that happens. Not to mention talk about being ‘bad’ and ‘I shouldn’t’ with a giggle while reaching for a cookie. Then, when it became slightly less cool to talk about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food, it turned to ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ or foods you can eat all the time and foods you should eat in moderation.
I was reading an old post on Ask A Manager about (during the pandemic) someone’s hubby starting a new job. They had a wellness meeting on Zoom in which they had to talk about what they ate and how they could do better. Most commenters were genuinely appalled, but there were a few hardy souls who caped for the diet industry. Oh, they did not say it that way, of course, but they were so invested in it. Talking about obesity, blah, blah, blah.
As many people pointed out, obesity is one of the bogeymen of healthcare. It’s what a doctor slaps on anything that happens to a fat person, whether it’s relevant or not. And, as people pointed out, oftentimes, the causation is going the wrong way. “People who are obese develop sleep apnea” should be rewritten as “People with sleep apnea are obese”. In other worcds, if there is a causation, it’s not necessarily the way people are told it goes.
Here’s the thing. Of course the medical industry is going to push obesity and personal responsibility so they don’t have to change what they do. They can just tell their patients to eat less and exercise more. Rinse, lather, repeat.
By the awy, I know it’s lather, rinse, repeat. For some reason, though, my brain has always said it as rinse, lather, repeat–and I’m not too fussed to change it.
It’s the point I was making yesterday about recycling and smoking. It’s in businesses’ interest to make sure the responsibility is foisted off on the individual so they can go about ruinning the environment. In the case of the medical industry, it’s not exactly the same. Except it is. They’re going for the easy answer and the one that makes it the willpower of the individual. And, because health insurance is tied to the workplace, it makes it even more insidious.
If a workplace sincerely cared abotu their employees (and not just about bringing down the healtchcare costs), they would value work/life balance, provide an array of food for the employees to eat, pay better, and offer incentives for people to exercise.
One cemmenter said that at her workplace, they did just that. She offered all the things they did, and most of them sounded good. But, then she said that they don’t remburse for exercise equipment. Their rationale was that most people didn’t use home equipment. I thought that was backwards thinking, though, because people who didn’t use equipment at home were not going to go to a gym. Also, I would want my weapons to be reimbursed. Yes, my classes and private lessons would be, but my weapons should be as well!