Monday 9 March 2015

Context and Health

I don't know if I'm the only one who feels this but....those who respond to the charge of "You're unhealthy"-aimed at (able-bodied?) fat people-with "I'm unhealthy", because they're disabled, provoke a real sense of dissonance in me. I don't claim to have a clue about disability activism.

Nor am I one of those who sees other people's lives as a way of describing my feels. I do not consider that which is/can be disabling to be the same as being a disabled person. I feel this uses genuinely disabled people and obscures the true nature of neuroses i.e. depression, ocd's, eating disorders, phobias etc., whilst claiming to be trying to illuminate them.

Bullshit.

I don't think it patronizing to say health has large component of individual context. If you have a disability/are disabled, that tells something about your health-which isn't the same as fitness. Within that parameter of disability, most have better or worse health same as anyone. An illness can be well managed, or less so. Imagine not being able to express this.

Ha, ha, that's 'obesity'! Strictly speaking a fat person is not permitted to acknowledge their health, that's truly-temporarily not sick. Fat people are allowed no ill-health other than the "obesity related."

A fat person riding a mobility scooter is a lazy so and so- a fat person cannot be disabled by anything but their largesse. All sickness in fat people is "obesity related"-if a fat person was slim, they wouldn't have the health problems slim people have (fat people are magic). And so on.....

I can't say I'm 100% sure on this, but I feel that the "unhealthy" constantly screamed at fat people doesn't refer to any "unhealthy" of a disabled person/ person with disability.

Not that I'm saying people shouldn't be made conscious of what they're saying, when they sneer in disgust at "unhealth", treating that as some kind of crime. It is also likely that the constant chanting of this is altering the atmosphere around ill health-how far this will spread is another thing.

For me though, when a person says a fat person is "unhealthy" they're locking themselves into the phoney ritualist sloganeering of 'obesity' which laughably pretends "unhealth" means that fat people must surrender control of their lives, rather than science urgently needs to pursue palliation/resolution/cure, which is the norm.

By continuing to accept such blatant false terms and responding as if that conclusion has any legitimacy, those seeking to oppose crusade rhetoric have unwittingly assisted the passage of the "unhealth" chant on its  mindless way.

Those defining themselves as "unhealthy" make me flinch. I get that some people have very bad health, I'm not denying that. But it seems odd to jettison the ability to perceive nuance or change.

It also feels like imposing an able-bodied, therefore de-contextualized standard of what health is for anyone who isn't. It says if you're not able-bodied, you don't have health. I've just realised, this echo's if you don't have slim you don't have health.

If you're disabled, how can able-bodied equals health be a meaningful description of what health is for you?

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