Can we talk about health?

Today I sat in an online migraine nutritional support group and was shocked to hear the policies in place around community discourse. Clearly a political move, the “rules” were designed to promote radical inclusivity, at least on its face.

The first policy affirmed and promoted the concept of having health at every size, which I was happy to hear of. I am not here to shame anyone about their body weight. Similarly, we were not to judge anyone’s food choices in the group, which I could also respect.
But then it went too far.

The authority figure running the group said that we could not even label any food as “healthy” or “unhealthy,” or as “good” or “bad.” The moderator insisted, in a kind of non-sequitur, that “we don’t know what kind of access people have to foods.”

Well, that’s true, and access is a key issue for why people are gravitated towards unhealthy food choices, whether that has to do with emotional decision-making, financial, or both.

But what in the world does that have to do with calling the food what it is: healthy or unhealthy, especially when it is obvious? When there are established facts about a food’s toxicity or its nutritional benefits, aren’t we allowed to speak the truth about the health or toxicity of these foods and rightfully so label them as such, not only for convenience but for truth’s sake, as well as to establish an objective language of commonality about health and nutrition?

Otherwise, what the hell are we even talking about?

If we are practicing this kind of silencing and stigmatization around what true health is, and what food truly is, then we lose sight of the truth. We can no longer even engage in discourse anymore about what nutrition is. The categorical concept of what nutrition is just falls apart: and with it, health.

We have to be able to talk about health, even in sensitive group settings.
Yes, we do need groups that promote health at every size. And every person, regardless of their BMI category, can eat broccoli who has the access to buy broccoli (although being willing to eat it might be a different story). Whether or not it is personally advantageous for you to eat broccoli, or how much of it, is partly dependent on your own health, chronic conditions, and your ideal nutritional profile, but I would wildly venture to say that most people would benefit from having organic broccoli in their diet. Broccoli contains compounds that fight cancer, promote immunity and energy. It provides B-vitamins, a ton of fiber, and helps with elimination, and its health benefits go on and on.

Meanwhile, McDonald’s hamburgers are made from unhealthy and unhappy cows. They are pumped full of conventional pharmaceutical antibiotics and are given artificial hormones for unnatural growth. The cows are either depressed, angry, or insane. They never get to see the light of day, soak up the sun or the rain, or roam freely on grass pastures. They are crammed inside of warehouses, often with wounds and festering illness and odors, and are nothing less than emotionally and physically tortured. They munch miserably on grains containing additives, Monsanto’s Round Up, and numerous other GMOs from the food supply.

It is not a stretch, nor is it offensive, to say that McDonald’s hamburgers are unhealthy and not a health food. Likewise, it is not a stretch to call (organic) broccoli healthy. It has been deemed a superfood for a reason. It is important that we talk about what healthy food is so that we know what health can look like.

So, this is an unfortunate and disturbing trend circling around the medical community. It’s not about being silenced when talking about weight or diet politics in radical health clinics; asking people not to be judgmental or offensive towards themselves or towards others is understandable (although some people DO want and need to talk about their weight and healthy food choices with their healthcare providers, and some of these clinics refuse to talk about it at all). But it’s one thing to request that people not judge other people for how they look, or what choices that they make regarding what foods they put in their bodies. It is another thing entirely to deny the very fundamental, categorical truths around what constitutes health, by silencing everyone from and refusing to label all foods as either healthy or unhealthy, good or bad.

Why are people doing this? Why are people shaming discourse in contemporary nutritional and medical circles under the veil of radical inclusivity from using language that involves health?

We need to talk about health. And we need to not be silenced about what it is and what it isn’t. Otherwise, we entirely lose the concept of nutrition and what is truth in the food industry. And what have so many people fought for, for decades, regarding honesty and transparency in food labeling as to what goes inside of our bodies?

Food is a vital necessity that we need to function. We need objectivity and real, unbiased facts around what is good and what is not; relativity arguments don’t cut it as the new universal answer, ironically enough. Broccoli contains phytonutrients and helps promote brain and gut function. It is not a relativized “maybe” over whether or not broccoli contains certain cancer fighting compounds; the compounds are in there, and if anyone believes any of the research that’s been done on the benefits of broccoli, then it’s a given. It is only a relativistic truth over how much broccoli one should personally have in their diet, and whether or not someone has access to eating organic broccoli on a regular basis (although, to be clear, if someone cannot afford any organic food at all, eating conventional broccoli with GMO’s still does offer the other nutritive benefits broccoli provides and is generally recommended). And broccoli is just one example. We can still talk about food being generally healthy that might not be healthy for everyone, because there’s always going to be that one person that says “Hey wait, I can’t eat broccoli!” And that’s fine. That doesn’t make it unhealthy or necessary to shame it into the hall of silence, where its devaluation leaves it in some ambiguous state that makes it hard for us to talk about its health benefits with others.

Can we please make nutritional groups promote real and genuine radical inclusivity that does not seek to silence and stigmatize what the truth is about our health? Because I would venture to say that isn’t radical or inclusive at all; instead, it merely panders to the large, monopolistic agribusinesses that have taken over the vast majority of our food supply, and it plays to their preferences of deception and confusion when we cannot even label their food as “unhealthy.” It somehow gives the impression that their food isn’t “bad” when we are forced into silence around its badness and its toxicity. Avoiding the labeling of their food as “bad” somehow implies that it is “good,” or that it really might not be that bad after all. That kind of deception will only help corrupt food companies increase their sales of toxic and unhealthy foods and will harm more members of the populace. It invalidates all of the tremendous hard work that political advocates have done to fight for honest and transparent food labeling. No! We never want to undo the work of the real radicals, the foodies that have fought for our health and well-being by exposing Monsanto’s corruption with GMOs, or how our water supplies have been contaminated, and all of the other numerous and unnamed scandals. That’s not radical at all, nor is it inclusive. Health at every size? Yes. Health with every food? NO.