Essay on Healthism and Its Influence Across Western Societies

Introduction

In the preceding decade, Australia, just like numerous other Western countries, has experienced a spike in fitness and health interests among its citizens. Of particular importance is the role played by appearance. Appearance motivates a healthy diet and physical activity. This essay reveals that good looks are the paramount inspiration behind weight control and training routines. Robert Crawford coined the word healthism, arguing that healthism elevates the idea of health to superior value. In other words, we place a moral value on actions, food or people that we perceive are healthy or unhealthy (Crawford, 1980). Healthism shows up in a number of places, but we often see it with issues that are perceived to be controllable, such as, alcoholism addiction, smoking and obesity. These concerns often become what researchers call a moral panic. A moral panic is when a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to the societal values and interests. In moral panics, someone in power starts proclaiming that an issue or set of people are a threat to the society’s well-being. Politicians and the media reinforce the idea by speaking about it in provoking terms, in return, the populous demands a response.

The influence of healthism

Since Robert Crawford defined healthism, it has been on the rise for many reasons. We can trace some of these reasons when we look at the realm of fat and the obesity epidemic moral panic. In 1997, William Dilts, the Director of the Division for Nutritional and Physical Activity in the CDC, was the first to proclaim obesity as an epidemic. After that time, we see healthism in regards to body size. Body size in this case shows up as a replacement for other prejudices, as a scapegoat for rising costs of healthcare and because the medical pharmaceutical complex has discovered a good healthism campaign can create big profits.