firecat: the tyranny of "healthy":

Even though this is supposedly a scientific information age, people still feel on some level that being not healthy means you did something wrong and you're being punished for it.

Health is in fact mostly a matter of luck (chance, genes, environment). One can have some influence on one's health conditions through behavior and environment, but one cannot absolutely control them and one cannot pick which health problems one is going to have to deal with. But people desperately want to believe that their health is entirely in their control, and part of sustaining that myth is to look down on people who are farther away from the health norm than they are, and believe 'they did it to themselves.' The other part is to look at their own health status, largely influenced by chance, and believe 'I made this, I am this healthy entirely because of my own choices.'

stef can write this stuff up so that it makes sense, whereas i am mostly reduced to pointing and waving my arms.