What is wrong with the word healthy?

"To the extent that healthism shapes popular beliefs, we will continue to have a non-political, and therefore, ultimately ineffective conception and strategy of health promotion." - Robert Crawford

Have you ever scrolled a social media post and noticed that the word healthy is in quotations? “Healthy”. It’s probably confusing to see, especially within the health or wellness space. After all, why is it wrong to want to eat healthy foods? Why is it wrong to want to live a healthy lifestyle? I see my fellow colleagues within the non diet space using the quotes and I myself also use them from time to time, so the question is why?

First off let me just say that you're allowed to say whatever you want. This is a personal opinion only and what works for me and others, might not work for you. There is no right or wrong but you have to remember context and individuality. Oftentimes the context of health is weaponized, meaning that we as a society have a very narrow definition of what it looks like.

We think of perfect health as having no ailments, illnesses or conditions. What we fail to remember and recognize is that not everyone can achieve the level of health that is promoted in society. Many conditions are genetic and can develop overtime to seemingly healthy individuals. The idea of perfection can also be traced to eugenics and the idea of creating the ideal human. “Eugenicists worldwide believed that they could perfect human beings and eliminate so-called social ills through genetics and heredity. They believed the use of methods such as involuntary sterilization, segregation and social exclusion would rid society of individuals deemed by them to be unfit.” Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, or as I like to refer to him as the “founder of BMI” (body mass index), centered his work on measuring human characteristics in order to determine the ideal l'homme moyen ("the average man"), which was in part, the foundation of eugenics.