Have you tried working harder?

“You didn’t make good choices. You had good choices.” - Little Fires Everywhere

“Just try harder, it’s not difficult to be healthy.” “It’s actually easy, but people don’t care.” These are the words that are usually written underneath social media posts whenever nuance is brought up in the non-diet movement. Instant dismissal of any talk outside of nutrients and exercise is so common that I don’t even think twice when I see comments like these because it makes sense, given the society we live in. 

I often think about the line from the mini drama series “Little Fires Everywhere” where Kerry Washington’s character Mia Warren is enraged at the entitlement of Reese Witherspoon’s character Elena Richardson and says very point blankly, “You didn't make good choices. You had good choices. Options that being rich, and white, and entitled gave you.” Don’t worry, I won’t give away any spoilers (you should definitely watch if you haven’t), but needless to say, there was a distinct difference in circumstances and outcomes between these two characters. We are all dealt different hands in life, which is rarely acknowledged. We are products of our environments, and when we live in an individualistic society, it’s not a surprise that we (as a society) have individualistic thoughts.

A scene from “Little Fires Everywhere”

Individualistic culture and mindset are common in Western society, and it can be described exactly as it sounds. It places the needs of the individual over the needs of the group as a whole. It screams, “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” and it rewards people for being independent and autonomous. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, as I think it’s important to think for oneself and know what’s best for you as an individual. When discussing nutrition, I often talk about doing what works best for an individual because we are not carbon copies of each other. Our bodies are, in fact, different, and we should view them as such. However, there is a stark difference between “eating this way works for me individually” and “I eat in the best way, and others who don’t are lazy.” An important piece of the puzzle missing for those who think like the latter is that not everyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps because they don’t have access to boots. 

In an individualistic culture, people are considered "good" if they are strong, self-reliant, assertive, and independent. But in order to be all of these things, we need to all start with the same equal resources and the same accesses, and unfortunately, we don’t. Equality assumes that everybody is the same and everybody needs the same thing, but some people will need more because they started with less, which is why we also need equity. Equity refers to the access or distribution of resources according to their need. 

Image from https://www.internationalwomensday.com/Missions/18707/Equality-versus-Equity-What-s-the-difference-as-we-EmbraceEquity-for-IWD-2023-and-beyond

Social inequities in health are shaped by unfair distributions of the social determinants of health (SDOH), which are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality of life outcomes and risks. SDOH is a subject that I often discuss as a public health dietitian because I see it firsthand in the populations I work with. It’s fine to discuss equality, but I find that equity is often left out of the discussion. So, no, factors such as safe housing, transportation, education, job opportunities, access to food and physical activity opportunities, clean water, and literacy skills are not distributed evenly. All of these uneven distributions create barriers to reaching equality.