Salutism: when health is dressed in morality and leaves pleasure aside

We're at a time when being healthy is a personal ambition, and we have to look and show it. For some time now, health has become a supreme value, almost a virtue to be flaunted. Therefore, the demands placed on health are ever-increasing: endless lists of things to do to be as healthy as possible. It's no longer enough to exercise ; you have to work hard at least three times a week; walking is no longer enough; fewer than 10,000 steps a day—ideally monitorable by phone or smartwatch—are simply not enough.

It's much better if you exercise in the morning; it will boost your metabolism and start the day with more energy, even if you wake up at 6:00 a.m. You should eat as healthily as possible and always follow the latest nutritional strategy: the most cutting-edge right now is intermittent fasting .

Your diet should always be healthy and eco-friendly: you don't want to eat any food you bought at the last minute at the supermarket, because life doesn't leave you time for anything else. It's important to eat "clean" and "real food," you know, that fitness trend and the realfooding movement. Demonizing foods like ultra-processed or low-quality processed foods, it classifies foods as having a lot of sugar, a lot of fat, etc. In general, carbohydrates that aren't whole grain aren't safe either.

Food isn't pleasure; food is just nutrients, and that's why you should always choose what's best for your body. A moral divide is created, turning less healthy foods—for this school of thought—into immoral foods. Those foods are chosen by the lazy, the hedonistic, and the irresponsible, who don't direct their lives toward being as healthy as possible.

And let's not forget supplements: you absolutely must take them, especially if you're over 40. At least magnesium, collagen, omega-3... and whatever the industry wants to sell you, like seawater (no joke) .

Another important factor for health is sleep, so try to get at least 7 or 8 hours of sleep, with good quality sleep: check your smartwatch to see how much deep sleep you have, how many times you wake up, and other nighttime events.

Of course, sleep and rest are extremely important , but now, in addition to maintaining good sleep hygiene, a series of rituals are required. Absolute silence; if you're not lucky enough to live in a detached house, the use of white noise machines is recommended to drown out pesky children, neighbors, or stray dogs.

If possible, use an ergonomic mattress with hypoallergenic covers and silk pillows. Don't go to bed without meditating or journaling : write down three good things from the day. If you don't express gratitude and gratitude to the universe, life won't go very well for you.

Always sleep the same number of hours, maintain a fixed schedule, including holidays and weekends. Oversleeping is a failure; you could be learning a language in that extra hour on Sunday. Light is super important; it's no longer just recommended to stop using screens at least an hour before bedtime, but also to use blue-light blocking glasses.

Getting a good night's sleep is another individual success in the race toward health. This trend ignores and minimizes insomnia, anxiety, personal problems, and work conditions that keep you from sleeping. It's all your responsibility. If you don't get a good night's sleep, it's because you're not trying hard enough.

This new trend is called salutism: it is an approach or ideology that prioritizes health and elevates it to the supreme value to be pursued in life. It is an individualistic approach to health, despite how the World Health Organization (WHO) defines it: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

Healthism neglects enjoyment, pleasure, personal relationships—everything that isn't "health." And most dangerously and unfairly, it ignores the conditions that interfere with health, such as socioeconomic conditions, access to health services, genetic factors , or food insecurity.

Social justice isn't included, even if it were just a shot, as one more addition to the long list of supplements to this ideology. This movement also has a body model that, as you might imagine, is thin and muscular, thus disregarding body diversity. Non-thin, non-muscled bodies are a failure. It's a new version of the same old weight-centric approach ; now it's "for your health."

This system, so extremely rigid and inflexible, ends up being an imposition on those who carry it out, leaving them feeling like failures the moment they fail. And it creates a moral superiority over those for whom health is not just another job.

In addition to being a trend created by economic privilege, it's for the same audience. Who has that much time and money to take care of themselves? It brings back our old friend guilt, social pressure, feelings of frustration and failure for not being able to fulfill that list of tasks. It turns health into just another job. Getting sick is no longer human; it's a failure. And, of course, it opens a social hierarchy among the chronically ill; it stigmatizes and pathologizes weight, but now from the perspective of irresponsibility for not being able to take charge of one's health. As if illnesses were chosen.

This classist, neoliberal, and individualistic approach reminds me of the film Gattaca (1997). It's a futuristic film where the population is divided between the "valid" and the "invalid." The valid are those born with perfect genetic conditions, since they have been modified, and this makes them the social elite. This grants them access to the best jobs and a life of success. Meanwhile, the "invalid," those born without genetic modification, are the lowest stratum of society and have access to what the chosen ones despise. In 2025, this film no longer seems like science fiction. Chilling.

NOURISH WITH SCIENCE This is a section on nutrition based on scientific evidence and the knowledge verified by specialists. Eating is much more than a pleasure and a necessity: diet and eating habits are currently the public health factor that can most help us prevent numerous diseases, from many types of cancer to diabetes. A team of dietitians and nutritionists will help us better understand the importance of nutrition and, thanks to science, debunk the myths that lead us to eat poorly.