My Big Healthy Complaint
My crusade againast the public health crowd isn't just fueled by my love of freedom and my opposition to stupid policies. Over the past couple of weeks, I've come to realize that my strong feelings are also in response to the puritanical and preachy nature of the entire health culture. Exercise, eat right, do this, do that, and blah, blah, blah. I'm just tired of hearing it constantly, from the tv, the radio, and from friends, family, and every idiot on the street. It's not that diet and exercise aren't important, it's just obnoxious that the nanny-like comments about what's bad for us have become all pervasive.
The odd thing is our society has become extrodinarily less puritanical when it comes to sex. Not only do we have a right to sexual privacy, but we're also supposed to be more accepting of people's sexual choices. Yet when it comes to food, the health Nazis command moral authority about what's good and what's bad.
The thing is, it's not that you shouldn't judge the actions of other people. If you think an order of fried oeros and a fried snickers bar at the fair is gross, thats your perogative. That sounds pretty delicious to me, and I enjoyed all my fried delights when I went to the fair last weeeknd. But just realize that when you turn your personal viewpoint into a statement about how I should live my life, you're no different than the prick who tells you not have sex before marriage. So next time you think about telling your fat friend not to eat that Bacon Double Cheeseburger, just think about your religious friend telling you not to have sex before you get married. You can either have a world where people try and foist their lifestyles on eevryone else or a world where people live and let live. Your choice.
The odd thing is our society has become extrodinarily less puritanical when it comes to sex. Not only do we have a right to sexual privacy, but we're also supposed to be more accepting of people's sexual choices. Yet when it comes to food, the health Nazis command moral authority about what's good and what's bad.
The thing is, it's not that you shouldn't judge the actions of other people. If you think an order of fried oeros and a fried snickers bar at the fair is gross, thats your perogative. That sounds pretty delicious to me, and I enjoyed all my fried delights when I went to the fair last weeeknd. But just realize that when you turn your personal viewpoint into a statement about how I should live my life, you're no different than the prick who tells you not have sex before marriage. So next time you think about telling your fat friend not to eat that Bacon Double Cheeseburger, just think about your religious friend telling you not to have sex before you get married. You can either have a world where people try and foist their lifestyles on eevryone else or a world where people live and let live. Your choice.
posted by lonely libertarian at 11:55 AM
2 Comments:
All I'm going to say is this. Like everything you compare, there are big, big differences between sex and food. Something like sex is all morals and personal beliefs. Something like a Double Bacon Cheeseburger isn't morals. Double Bacon Cheeseburgers are bad for you, regardless of taste. So when someone tells you not to have sex before marriage, that person is just being a pushy jerk. When a friend tells a fat friend not to eat that fried Oreo or Double Bacon Cheeseburger, they say it because they care about your health.
So concern for someone's immortal soul makes you a pushy jerk, but concern for their arteries is being a good friend?
What's interesting to me is that health today is talked about using the same sort of language that morals were talked about fifty or one hundred years ago. Someone might have made the exact opposite argument as you made back then and I just don't see the difference. Why is my health anyone's business any more than my morals are?
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