I'm still not seeing how going to the gym and then riding the bus home automatically makes someone an asshole who hates fat people.

Did somebody say it did? I think I missed that, if so.

I'm still not seeing how going to the gym and then riding the bus home automatically makes someone an asshole who hates fat people. If I whack you with my bag, I'm an asshole whether it's a gym bag or a Target bag or a briefcase. My personal views on health have nothing to do with it.

Yeah, this bothers me as well.

Which... I guess is my rant. *g*

Pfft. Far too reasonable to be a rant.

There are just too many factors that go into a person's physical makeup for society to judge on one thing only.

Yes, but our culture will anyway. I don't see our culture's pathological obsession with dieting and weight to be the same thing as "health."

Healthiness is well-being, and fitness and eating sensibly and not being sedentary. It's not the same thing as fat-bias.

And, as Jessica notes, having a gym bag doesn't make you douche-nozzle.

The point of a virtue is not to judge people who fail that standard, but to have a standard to reach for. We articulate our values so we can be mindful of them.

I don't see a single problem with saying: "I should do things that promote my health. It is good to do those things."

That doesn't equal: "I should despise and mock people who do unhealthy things."

Because advocating education doesn't mean you hate people who are uneducated. Unless you're just an asshole. Which is separate from the whole pro-education agenda.

The conversation started here:

Toddson "Spike's Bitches 44: It's about the rules having changed." Apr 10, 2009 9:16:52 am PDT

So to answer the original question, no, I don't think there's a connection between health nuts and assholes except that some people are both. People with overinflated senses of entitlement will apply it to just about anything.

Did somebody say it did? I think I missed that, if so.

That's where the conversation started. Toddson's question (specifically linked to obnoxious, gym-bag wielding people) was whether there had been a shift in cultural values to advocate Health as a virtue at the expense of other virtues, like Civility.

I took it kind of personally because I'm a person who exercises who is also kind of clumsy and flaily. But I'm generally polite I hope!

But I'm generally polite I hope!

I can speak to this point: You are! Also, I don't think of you as clumsy.

Healthiness is well-being, and fitness and eating sensibly and not being sedentary. It's not the same thing as fat-bias.

But people see someone thin and think Healthy! and they see someone not thin and think Unhealthy!

And fat bias creeps into it. It does in so many ways. From the BMI held as the be all end all of health achievement by most people to someone looking at a woman who is a size 20 and automatically assuming unhealthy or that she needs to lose weight to be healthy. Even if, in reality, she works out and is in great physical shape.

I suspect the people who use "health" as an excuse to not be civil would find an excuse (as opposed to a reason - but that's a whole other argument) not to be civil if suddenly health wasn't a virtue. Which is basically the "assholes will be assholes" argument, and I agree with that.

Toddson's question (specifically linked to obnoxious, gym-bag wielding people) was whether there had been a shift in cultural values to advocate Health as a virtue at the expense of other virtues, like Civility.

Yes. That was how I understood her post. I wouldn't have summarised that as:

going to the gym and then riding the bus home automatically makes someone an asshole who hates fat people.

But I guess YMMV.