Should People Be Free to Choose to Be Unhealthy?
In my opinion, everyone should be free to choose whether they want to be healthy or not. It’s not my place to tell others how to live their lives, and I greatly appreciate it when others extend me the same freedom to make my own choices. However, many people lack access to critical information that would empower them to make truly informed decisions.
Shouldn’t everyone have access to information that helps them make informed choices? Unfortunately, they don’t.
Take sodium intake, for example. Many people are highly concerned about it, and the government gets involved by labeling foods “high in sodium.” But is sodium really the problem? Generally, no. The real issue is insulin resistance, which causes the body to retain sodium.
Most people have never even heard of insulin resistance. I hesitate to write a long article or post about it because I know there’s another 20-minute scroll of useless information waiting to distract people. Simply put: if people weren’t insulin resistant, they wouldn’t need to fear sodium. Yet the government doesn’t mention that on the label—it just says “high in sodium.”
I won’t say more than that. I know there’s another post you might be itching to read, and this one is already too long…
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I’m shocked to see someone identify insulin resistance as the underlying cause of sodium intolerance. Insulin resistance is the cause of the vast majority of diseases of the affluent. And your doctor probably doesn’t have a clue, and worse yet doesn’t want to have a clue. Because you dont need a prescription to correct IR, it’s free!
I think the next question after asking “should people be free to be unhealthy?” Is “to what extent should other people / communities help unhealthy people out when they get sick?”
Should we subsidise their (holistic?) cancer treatment when they ate pesticides and got jabbed?
Should we pay for their recovery from alcoholism?
Do we have any duty of care towards our fellow humans?
If not strangers then what about family and dear friends who continue to slather sunscreen, get jabbed, drink fluoride, use cellphones, and eat pesticides? To what extent should we help them when they failed to heed our advice and kept their heads buried in the sand? Should I stay home to care for a dear friend with cancer who is dying because of preventable causes? Put tens of thousands towards treatment for a family member?
A part of me feels pretty pissed off wjth people who have the internet and have time to f*** around on social media but say they don’t have time or bandwidth or interest in health - I have a family member going through some minor but annoying health stuff right now who does absolutely nothing for their health and I’m struggling to find any empathy for them.
I get that there are social, systemic and institutional forces that mean we can’t always do everything 100% perfect (eg hard to avoid elecrosmog in cities, or artificial lights in every shop) but there are still a lot of things middle class and even working class folk can do that they refuse to do because convenience or whatever (eg not using a microwave or switching off your phone and wifi when you sleep).