I'll start. I think I've been snobbish about so-called convenience foods, especially for my kid. (What's the alternative? Inconvenience foods?) I love to cook and that’s fine. But when I don't or can't, I am going to try to lean into the frozen French fries or whatever with less guilt
Your broader observation about the fallacy of harder = better is an excellent one. Better should be based on “more valuable,” not on whether it is difficult to accomplish. At the same time, many things that are valuable are, in fact, difficult to accomplish. Being an MD is highly valuable to society yet very difficult to accomplish; a superb chef likely got there with much effort over a long period of time; an excellent musician no doubt spent years of hard work honing their craft. I think where the confusion comes in is here: Because most things of great value are hard to accomplish, many people simply assume that “difficult” always means “better,” when that is not the case.
Running as a form of exercise comes to mind for this. I have short legs. I have put in time to get good at running but it hurt my knee and it was hard. I'm never going to have a long stride. I find it easier to do almost any other form of exercise (former competitive swimmer, current weightlifter) than running. And yet it's held up as the ultimate in exercise. Running kinda sucks actually.
The fallacy is based on Puritanism. Suffering is supposedly good for you. Difficulty is proof of merit. —Weber had their number. Lafargue was right. https://www.are.na/block/11732939
So true about harder-better. I think it's connected to both Puritanism and the "heroic" era of medicine-- the idea that we need to do extreme things like bloodlet, sweat, treat with mercury, and shock the body into submission.
And for the record, my "clinically obese" grandmother lived to 94, sharp as anything and still winning bridge tournaments till the end. Her knees bothered her, and she had diabetes, but was in otherwise good health. She said, "My doctors can't figure out why I'm so healthy." I think of her every time someone insists that being heavy is bad for your health. It wasn't so bad for hers!
The messages that something is hard can be dangerous. I stayed in coercive relationships with mental health providers who undermined my self-esteem, self-confidence and self-efficacy because everyone I spoke to about it told me therapy and personal change is hard. Circling back to diet culture, the idea that people need to work hard against their body in order to achieve some false measure of health is so harmful.
Harder-better fallacy is bang on - very hard-wired in capitalist societies obsessed with hierarchy. See also law school, marathon running etc. Of course people can genuinely enjoy such things and thrive doing them, but it doesn’t make those people morally superior. Thanks for saying it <3
Fascinating to see you edging into another over-policed area of women's lives, breast-feeding. Really the brain-washing and shame that goes on around this is mind-boggling.
Sail on. And ding dong, the witch may not be dead yet but Bragg has indicted him.
I think you just have to be clear on your own goals - and if it turns out there was an easier way to do it, then so be it. But if the time and effort is spent is in pursuit of something you wanted, then it's not wasteful. If it feels wasteful, maybe you defined your goal out of alignment with your values.
I've come across people that are competitive to no real endgame, and I never understood it. But it seems to make them feel better, and who knows, maybe it reduces their stress? :-)
But if you're talking about being judgey, that's a little different. Like when you have a visceral negative response when you have no stake in the outcome. I have to stop myself when I do that, and remember that I don't have all the facts to make a judgment, nor do I intend to make the effort to get the facts to make a judgment.
When I think of all the wasted time and energy that is hoisted on women to perform... How much time myself, my mother, my grandmother wasted... I'm glad that cycle is finally getting chipped away at or even broken or at least given the words to express it.
1) As someone who desperately wanted to breast feed there has been a difference for my daughter's digestive system that I dismissed while she was growing up as she had a list of things that disagreed with her. Reading the Dietician's Dilemma answered a lot of that. But more importantly a for profit society cares nothing for breast feeding. I had all of 5 minutes with a lactation nurse after my daughter was born. She was having trouble latching on and all we were offered was infant formula and sent on our way. It's often the only resource offered. Infant formula is profitable. Lactating mothers or supporting lactating mothers is not.
2) As a T2 diabetic I'll go out on a limb and talk about it. They generally work by forcing your body to absorb more sugar than it is capable of handling. That's what T2D is the body cannot process sugar in any form (that means starches, veggies and fruit too). The hormones that regulate this (mainly insulin) don't work right for whatever reason. None of the drugs treat the disease at all. They're simply hiding the effects to slow down the progression until you end up dead from a laundry list of diseases (heart attack, stroke, liver/kidney failure, etc). The answer is to strictly limit the sugar since your body can't handle it anyway. The ADA is finally starting to acknowledge this. That's how I got my blood work from full-blown T2D to normal. If someone is looking strictly at my weight they would judge me unhealthy. My blood work says I'm healthy. So people using these drugs who are not diabetic are basically forcing more sugar processing from their system than it can handle which will not end well... I shudder to think what the long term side effects will be. It is criminal that the medical community is not pushing against this.
3) Your weight, and doctors have known this for decades, is controlled by a laundry list of hormones with insulin being the prime suspect. They knew this from studying diabetics and experimenting on mice. T1D suffers have no natural insulin and cannot store fat. They die from starvation because the body needs fat. T2D suffers have an over abundance of insulin and store all the fat. They die from their organs breaking down under the stress of this.
4) Size and weight indicate nothing about your health. If you really want to know if you're healthy or not, your blood work will tell you. You're supposed to get it checked every year. I know our medical system stinks but there are resources like Own Your Own Labs and Common Sense Lab Handbook that will walk you through everything your doctor probably won't take the time to tell you or simply is unaware of.
As a T2D convenience food for me is pickles, olives, cheese and meat sticks! lol
Thanks for this, as always thoughtful, capacious piece. Richard Sennett's 2003 book, Respect, is excellent on the nuances and vagaries of all this. Especially good on human aspiration, on the pursuit of being ourselves while not being ourselves as we see ourselves through the eyes of others.
Mar 30, 2023·edited Mar 31, 2023Liked by Kate Manne
I exercise because I like it. It’s fun. I feel better when I do it. I wouldn’t do it if it weren’t fun. I’m lazy when I can afford to be. Difficulty and suffering are not signs of membership in the Elect.
For what it's worth, my kids' pediatrician told me that "breast is best" depends largely on the socioeconomic position of the parents. I had a hard time breastfeeding my first, and she told me that all that data on how breast milk is superior didn't apply to my family because we were educated professionals with stable jobs, a subscription to a water delivery service (this was important because we lived in the River Parishes of Louisiana at the time and water frequently must be boiled just to be safe for adults to drink so not every parent can just have safe clean water on demand down there) and enough disposable income that we would never have to ration formula (this was back in the good old days before we kept having shortages). Point being, I don't know who Emily Oster is, but the medical professionals I trust with my kids also said there's no difference between breastfed babies and formula fed babies when issues with cost and clean water are removed. Unfortunately I don't see our country assisting with those really big obstacles any time soon.
When I was younger I felt less than because I didn’t easily buy into the ‘faster - better’ approach - I’m more of a ‘in its own time’ kinda gal. Age affords wisdom (thank gawd) and I’m still laid back but I no longer feel conspicuous for not being a ‘go getter’. I’m not lazy , I care about the work I do , but harder doesn’t make better. And now, if someone thinks I’m lazy, I simply don’t care.
I was wrapped up with the whole diet and exercise BS American woman are subjected to, but a few years back I revolted. I stopped weighing myself, I quit my injury inducing cross - fit type workout, I stopped counting every teeny tiny damn thing I put in my mouth. The result ? I’m more content , I think about and spend time on much more constructive endeavors, and I feel better ! My numbers are good and best of all , I’m learning to trust myself.
I’m not doggin’ on people who are all about the ‘faster - harder’ approach to life. If you go hard for yourself and you are proud of your accomplishments that’s awesome ! But be honest and make sure you’re taking care of yourself - honoring yourself and not getting caught up in motivations that have nothing to do with you. ❤️
At an aggregate level, Americans have far higher rates of death per 100,000 people from coronary heart disease and diabetes than our counterparts in Western Europe or Canada. I know correlation is not causation but the US has far higher obesity rates than Western Europe and Canada and obesity is strongly linked to coronary heart disease and diabetes. If obesity is not a factor, what is the cause of the much higher mortality rates? You are correct that some obese people are healthier than non-obese people. But what do the data show at an aggregate level?
I'll start. I think I've been snobbish about so-called convenience foods, especially for my kid. (What's the alternative? Inconvenience foods?) I love to cook and that’s fine. But when I don't or can't, I am going to try to lean into the frozen French fries or whatever with less guilt
Your broader observation about the fallacy of harder = better is an excellent one. Better should be based on “more valuable,” not on whether it is difficult to accomplish. At the same time, many things that are valuable are, in fact, difficult to accomplish. Being an MD is highly valuable to society yet very difficult to accomplish; a superb chef likely got there with much effort over a long period of time; an excellent musician no doubt spent years of hard work honing their craft. I think where the confusion comes in is here: Because most things of great value are hard to accomplish, many people simply assume that “difficult” always means “better,” when that is not the case.
Running as a form of exercise comes to mind for this. I have short legs. I have put in time to get good at running but it hurt my knee and it was hard. I'm never going to have a long stride. I find it easier to do almost any other form of exercise (former competitive swimmer, current weightlifter) than running. And yet it's held up as the ultimate in exercise. Running kinda sucks actually.
The fallacy is based on Puritanism. Suffering is supposedly good for you. Difficulty is proof of merit. —Weber had their number. Lafargue was right. https://www.are.na/block/11732939
So true about harder-better. I think it's connected to both Puritanism and the "heroic" era of medicine-- the idea that we need to do extreme things like bloodlet, sweat, treat with mercury, and shock the body into submission.
And for the record, my "clinically obese" grandmother lived to 94, sharp as anything and still winning bridge tournaments till the end. Her knees bothered her, and she had diabetes, but was in otherwise good health. She said, "My doctors can't figure out why I'm so healthy." I think of her every time someone insists that being heavy is bad for your health. It wasn't so bad for hers!
The messages that something is hard can be dangerous. I stayed in coercive relationships with mental health providers who undermined my self-esteem, self-confidence and self-efficacy because everyone I spoke to about it told me therapy and personal change is hard. Circling back to diet culture, the idea that people need to work hard against their body in order to achieve some false measure of health is so harmful.
Harder-better fallacy is bang on - very hard-wired in capitalist societies obsessed with hierarchy. See also law school, marathon running etc. Of course people can genuinely enjoy such things and thrive doing them, but it doesn’t make those people morally superior. Thanks for saying it <3
Fascinating to see you edging into another over-policed area of women's lives, breast-feeding. Really the brain-washing and shame that goes on around this is mind-boggling.
Sail on. And ding dong, the witch may not be dead yet but Bragg has indicted him.
I think you just have to be clear on your own goals - and if it turns out there was an easier way to do it, then so be it. But if the time and effort is spent is in pursuit of something you wanted, then it's not wasteful. If it feels wasteful, maybe you defined your goal out of alignment with your values.
I've come across people that are competitive to no real endgame, and I never understood it. But it seems to make them feel better, and who knows, maybe it reduces their stress? :-)
But if you're talking about being judgey, that's a little different. Like when you have a visceral negative response when you have no stake in the outcome. I have to stop myself when I do that, and remember that I don't have all the facts to make a judgment, nor do I intend to make the effort to get the facts to make a judgment.
Thanks for posting! Wonderful food for thought.
When I think of all the wasted time and energy that is hoisted on women to perform... How much time myself, my mother, my grandmother wasted... I'm glad that cycle is finally getting chipped away at or even broken or at least given the words to express it.
1) As someone who desperately wanted to breast feed there has been a difference for my daughter's digestive system that I dismissed while she was growing up as she had a list of things that disagreed with her. Reading the Dietician's Dilemma answered a lot of that. But more importantly a for profit society cares nothing for breast feeding. I had all of 5 minutes with a lactation nurse after my daughter was born. She was having trouble latching on and all we were offered was infant formula and sent on our way. It's often the only resource offered. Infant formula is profitable. Lactating mothers or supporting lactating mothers is not.
2) As a T2 diabetic I'll go out on a limb and talk about it. They generally work by forcing your body to absorb more sugar than it is capable of handling. That's what T2D is the body cannot process sugar in any form (that means starches, veggies and fruit too). The hormones that regulate this (mainly insulin) don't work right for whatever reason. None of the drugs treat the disease at all. They're simply hiding the effects to slow down the progression until you end up dead from a laundry list of diseases (heart attack, stroke, liver/kidney failure, etc). The answer is to strictly limit the sugar since your body can't handle it anyway. The ADA is finally starting to acknowledge this. That's how I got my blood work from full-blown T2D to normal. If someone is looking strictly at my weight they would judge me unhealthy. My blood work says I'm healthy. So people using these drugs who are not diabetic are basically forcing more sugar processing from their system than it can handle which will not end well... I shudder to think what the long term side effects will be. It is criminal that the medical community is not pushing against this.
3) Your weight, and doctors have known this for decades, is controlled by a laundry list of hormones with insulin being the prime suspect. They knew this from studying diabetics and experimenting on mice. T1D suffers have no natural insulin and cannot store fat. They die from starvation because the body needs fat. T2D suffers have an over abundance of insulin and store all the fat. They die from their organs breaking down under the stress of this.
4) Size and weight indicate nothing about your health. If you really want to know if you're healthy or not, your blood work will tell you. You're supposed to get it checked every year. I know our medical system stinks but there are resources like Own Your Own Labs and Common Sense Lab Handbook that will walk you through everything your doctor probably won't take the time to tell you or simply is unaware of.
As a T2D convenience food for me is pickles, olives, cheese and meat sticks! lol
Thanks for this, as always thoughtful, capacious piece. Richard Sennett's 2003 book, Respect, is excellent on the nuances and vagaries of all this. Especially good on human aspiration, on the pursuit of being ourselves while not being ourselves as we see ourselves through the eyes of others.
I exercise because I like it. It’s fun. I feel better when I do it. I wouldn’t do it if it weren’t fun. I’m lazy when I can afford to be. Difficulty and suffering are not signs of membership in the Elect.
For what it's worth, my kids' pediatrician told me that "breast is best" depends largely on the socioeconomic position of the parents. I had a hard time breastfeeding my first, and she told me that all that data on how breast milk is superior didn't apply to my family because we were educated professionals with stable jobs, a subscription to a water delivery service (this was important because we lived in the River Parishes of Louisiana at the time and water frequently must be boiled just to be safe for adults to drink so not every parent can just have safe clean water on demand down there) and enough disposable income that we would never have to ration formula (this was back in the good old days before we kept having shortages). Point being, I don't know who Emily Oster is, but the medical professionals I trust with my kids also said there's no difference between breastfed babies and formula fed babies when issues with cost and clean water are removed. Unfortunately I don't see our country assisting with those really big obstacles any time soon.
I loved this Kate! And agree wholeheartedly about that particular Venn diagram being closer to a circle.
When I was younger I felt less than because I didn’t easily buy into the ‘faster - better’ approach - I’m more of a ‘in its own time’ kinda gal. Age affords wisdom (thank gawd) and I’m still laid back but I no longer feel conspicuous for not being a ‘go getter’. I’m not lazy , I care about the work I do , but harder doesn’t make better. And now, if someone thinks I’m lazy, I simply don’t care.
I was wrapped up with the whole diet and exercise BS American woman are subjected to, but a few years back I revolted. I stopped weighing myself, I quit my injury inducing cross - fit type workout, I stopped counting every teeny tiny damn thing I put in my mouth. The result ? I’m more content , I think about and spend time on much more constructive endeavors, and I feel better ! My numbers are good and best of all , I’m learning to trust myself.
I’m not doggin’ on people who are all about the ‘faster - harder’ approach to life. If you go hard for yourself and you are proud of your accomplishments that’s awesome ! But be honest and make sure you’re taking care of yourself - honoring yourself and not getting caught up in motivations that have nothing to do with you. ❤️
At an aggregate level, Americans have far higher rates of death per 100,000 people from coronary heart disease and diabetes than our counterparts in Western Europe or Canada. I know correlation is not causation but the US has far higher obesity rates than Western Europe and Canada and obesity is strongly linked to coronary heart disease and diabetes. If obesity is not a factor, what is the cause of the much higher mortality rates? You are correct that some obese people are healthier than non-obese people. But what do the data show at an aggregate level?