Category Archives: Definitions of Health

If only poor people understood nutrition!

By Michelle | Published: January 13, 2010

It seems like some people are constantly wringing their hands about how poor people eat (to wit: badly.) And the most popularly proposed solution is to teach them (“them”) more about nutrition! Or educate them in general. Because obviously they just don’t know what they’re doing. And that’s why they eat so badly, and hence, [...]

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Don’t be poor (and other New Year’s resolutions.)

By Michelle | Published: January 4, 2010

Diabetes death rate drops — primarily among rich people. This is my SURPRISED FACE. Especially since, in 1995, the World Health Organization identified poverty as “the biggest single underlying cause of death, disease and suffering worldwide.” In a hilarious-because-it’s-sadly-true list posted to the Wikipedia article on the social determinants of health, a typical list of [...]

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Accepting the unacceptable.

By Michelle | Published: August 14, 2009

This summer has been hard for me. I’m not going to lie. I started it off by turning 30, which I was extremely excited about. I’m a bit sentimental when it comes to numbers, and I was doing the whole clean-slate-fresh-start thing in my head. And there have been a lot of good changes recently, [...]

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Are fat people unhealthy? (part 2)

By Michelle | Published: July 3, 2009

Continued from part 1: …For health practitioners, particularly those enamoured with biochemical indices and relative-risk reduction strategies, the notion of one, simple solution [weight loss] to a myriad of chronic diseases — and possibly to mortality itself — is eminently seductive. Sadly, I also think it’s wrong. Why is it wrong? Because, first of all, [...]

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Are fat people unhealthy?

By Michelle | Published: June 18, 2009

There certainly seems to be a lot of evidence to support the conclusion that we are, or at least to show associations between high body weight and poor health. But I’m wondering, what’s really the most important question here? Whether fat people are unhealthy? Or why fat people might be unhealthy, if they are? I [...]

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