Health is Not an Equal Opportunity Experience
Health is not an equal opportunity experience.
It is impacted by a multitude of factors. That are largely outside of most humans control. This is not about not working hard enough. This is not about modifying priorities. This is not about pulling oneself up by their bootstraps. This is not about love and light and best wishes.
Health is not simply about what someone eats or doesn’t eat. Or simply about how someone moves or doesn’t move. Or how committed someone is to engaging in ‘health promotion practices.’
Now, more than ever, we should be appreciating health as a community experience.
Stop. Please read that again.
There is a reason why the rates of COVID-19 are disproportionately elevated in communities that have been oppressed for centuries.
There is a reason that weight stigma impacts care provided to humans who live in larger bodies. Reliance on BMI, (an explicitly racist tool used implicitly to communicate these ideals, as a norm) weight bias in healthcare and the belief that weight, not the multitude of determinants of health that have nothing to with body size, make this largely unchallenged practice seem okay.
It’s not.
There is a reason that racism in healthcare impacts care provided to humans who live in Black and Brown bodies. Oppression of Black and Brown bodies is older than the existence of the United States. And has been perpetuated here since the beginning of the beginning.
Health is not a thing that I’ve been able to fully appreciate for nearly 20 years. And I’ve benefited from having access, privilege, at every stage of my life. I’ll never be healthy. I do have the opportunity to maximize what health I do have.
I hope you are healthy and well. And if you’re not, I see you. And if health promotion is not a thing you value, I see you. And if you’d do anything for health, but can’t access it, I see you.
You owe your health to no one.
And I wish you peace and respect and wellbeing.
>> what would you add to this definition of health?
>> fellow practitioners, are you asking questions about health as a value? Are you examining barriers to health on behalf of your clients?
Read: Fearing the Black Body
