3 ms·

Part of the reason why it’s a thing in the US is that a huge number of people do have/have had a serious illness in the past: heart disease, diabetes, obesity,

Part of the reason why it’s a thing in the US is that a huge number of people do have/have had a serious illness in the past: heart disease, diabetes, obesity, etc. Part of the reason they have those illnesses is because they neglected their health due to the cost of prevention.

trgn 4y ago
Is this really the case though? The annual check up is something that's been advocated a long time, 50s at least, and predates the obesity epidemic. The annual checkup is a symptom of a therapeutic view of health care, a view which cannot be divorced from modernism. The body is a machine which must be oiled and greased, frequently submitted to tests and expert investigation, so it can be tuned perfectly, just like a car, like a machine. This really was _the_ obsession in post war America: that all human activity (really, all of it), needed to be mediated by technology. This included personal transportation, education, cooking, ... and also maintaining our health. And that is where we are now; a chronically medicated population and a bureaucracy optimized to propagate this state of affairs. The annual checkup fits perfectly in this mindset.
chmod600 4y ago
What's the cost of preventing those diseases? Aren't those mostly diet/lifestyle?
- paulcole 4y ago
  Diet and lifestyle aren’t free.
  - carlmr 4y ago
    A plant-based diet can be cheaper than a lacto-carnivorous diet. Sports on the other hand do take a lot of time.
    - hansvm 4y ago
      Implicit in that statement (taken together with the comment you're responding to) is the assumption that the kinds of plants cheaper than meats and dairy are healthier than a lacto-carnivorous diet. Locally, chicken and live anchovies are cheaper than lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, and even beans and rice when denominated in pounds, sulfur, protein, calcium, B vitamins, .... I can understand the argument for having a high level of plants in your diet, but I'm skeptical that it's cheaper to live on just plants unless you only count calories and no other nutrients. Plus I think they were probably talking about how all of those options are vastly more expensive than living on Raman and peanut butter sandwiches, especially once you count for prep time and power costs.
    - paulcole 4y ago
      Cost isn’t just money.

trgn 4y ago

Is this really the case though? The annual check up is something that's been advocated a long time, 50s at least, and predates the obesity epidemic. The annual checkup is a symptom of a therapeutic view of health care, a view which cannot be divorced from modernism. The body is a machine which must be oiled and greased, frequently submitted to tests and expert investigation, so it can be tuned perfectly, just like a car, like a machine. This really was _the_ obsession in post war America: that all human activity (really, all of it), needed to be mediated by technology. This included personal transportation, education, cooking, ... and also maintaining our health. And that is where we are now; a chronically medicated population and a bureaucracy optimized to propagate this state of affairs. The annual checkup fits perfectly in this mindset.

chmod600 4y ago

What's the cost of preventing those diseases? Aren't those mostly diet/lifestyle?

paulcole 4y ago
Diet and lifestyle aren’t free.
- carlmr 4y ago
  A plant-based diet can be cheaper than a lacto-carnivorous diet. Sports on the other hand do take a lot of time.
  - hansvm 4y ago
    Implicit in that statement (taken together with the comment you're responding to) is the assumption that the kinds of plants cheaper than meats and dairy are healthier than a lacto-carnivorous diet. Locally, chicken and live anchovies are cheaper than lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, and even beans and rice when denominated in pounds, sulfur, protein, calcium, B vitamins, .... I can understand the argument for having a high level of plants in your diet, but I'm skeptical that it's cheaper to live on just plants unless you only count calories and no other nutrients. Plus I think they were probably talking about how all of those options are vastly more expensive than living on Raman and peanut butter sandwiches, especially once you count for prep time and power costs.
  - paulcole 4y ago
    Cost isn’t just money.