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

I really don't think that. If somebody's morbidly obese and they're smoking? Yeah, then I think they're putting too much stress on their heart. If I see somebody smoking who's pregnant? I feel judgmental about that. People who are thin? I don't presume anything about them until I know them.

I've known people who have very high metabolisms naturally. I know people who have eating disorders which are really damaging. I know people who are skinny because they smoke incessantly and take drugs. I've even known distance runners who I didn't think were particularly healthy because the ran until they had shin splints and had an almost anorexic view of their body. And I've known ballet dancers who - despite their obvious athleticism and work - had unhealthy relationships with their body.

And fat bias creeps into it. It does in so many ways.

Maybe, but it's not an intrinsic component of advocating health. And inconsiderate bag wielding is not the end-result of health fiends conspiring to make sedentary people feel bad about themselves.

But it's not okay to be the arbiter of other people's lifestyle choices.

Since you're big on fallacies today, I'll note this is a straw man. Nobody is the arbiter of other people's lifestyle choices. There is no such person or law.

Making a morally neutral choice/activity into a virtue creates a false dichotomy where people who do not make the "virtuous" choice are automatically "bad."

I don't see this as a false dichotomy. I think, "Doing unhealthy things is bad for you" is a true statement. And I think you're failing to make a distinction between judging somebody's behavior to be self-harmful, and calling somebody a bad person because they engage in that behavior.

I don't think rating Health as a virtue condemns unhealthy people as Bad People.

Since you're big on fallacies today

Only yours.

Nobody is the arbiter of other people's lifestyle choices.

Oh, please.

I don't think rating Health as a virtue condemns unhealthy people as Bad People.

How does it not? That's a serious question.

I don't really see the connection between the word "virtue" and moral judgment outside of an explicitly religious context. It simply doesn't ping me that way. Maybe that's why I'm having trouble with this.

I don't really see the connection between the word "virtue" and moral judgment outside of an explicitly religious context.

I didn't even think of it in religious terms, actually, although I know that's where it originated. The definition of "virtue" that I've always used is "moral excellence," or "that which is morally good."

By that definition, the opposite of virtue is "that which is morally bad." The opposite of virtue is not a neutral position.

So if health is virtuous, then not-health is not-virutous, which is morally bad.

That's where I'm coming from, if that helps at all.

Oh, please.

Who is making choices for you Teppy? You are. Nobody else. Not your mom and her weight issues. Not the surgeon general. An arbiter is the person who makes a decision. You are not bound by anybody's decisions but your own. So, unless you've been declared incompetent by a judge, you, as a free adult in America, are the arbiter.

How does it not? That's a serious question.

I'm not sure where the breakdown occurs except around the word "virtue." For me, the noun of it has to do with an abstract concept. The noun is not the thing it is applied to. So, for me being good, or virtuous, is not a state of being. It's a platonic ideal that can never be achieved completely. You're not Good or Bad. You are striving to be More Good.

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

I am well aware of the relentless promotion of fad diets etc. but I don't think that most people think this. Not in my experience anyway. Maybe it's because I live in a city with a large junkie population.

It's not your place, or my place, or the government's place, to harangue people to "be good" and embrace the virtue of getting off the couch and jogging to the farmer's market where they will buy local, organic, lovingly picked produce that they will then consume only in moderation as part of their high-fiber, low-fat, low-sugar, pizza-avoiding, processed-food-avoiding diet.

I don't think letting people know about healthier options, and trying to let them know over the constant din of fast food advertising, is haranguing. You are educated and you can make choices about what you eat based on your education, this information isn't readily available to people with limited resources. Diabetes and heart disease are an epidemic in populations. And this does affect everybody.

Sorry if I'm not being particularly articulate. This issue is dear to my heart because of my involvement with an organization here that provides food and nutritional counseling to very sick, very disenfranchised people. Making sure these folks have the information they need to make good choices about what they eat, and making sure they get that food, is a huge deal to me.

Who is making choices for you Teppy? You are. Nobody else. Not your mom and her weight issues. Not the surgeon general. An arbiter is the person who makes a decision. You are not bound by anybody's decisions but your own. So, unless you've been declared incompetent by a judge, you, as a free adult in America, are the arbiter.

Okay, I spoke imprecisely. I didn't mean the dictionary definition of "arbiter," and that's entirely my fault for not choosing my words more carefully, or assuming that the meaning of a colloquial use would be understood.

There is a strong amount of pressure that is created by others' assignment of moral value to lifestyle choices that have no intrinsic moral value. That pressure -- whether it's the anti-smoking "Truth" ads, or ads that imply that eating a salad bestows virtue -- affects many people. Some people, of course, are able to ignore all outside influences, and that is admirable. But I believe it's facile to ignore the effect that others' assignment of moral values to lifestyle choices has on many people.

How does it not? That's a serious question.

I'm not sure where the breakdown occurs except around the word "virtue." For me, the noun of it has to do with an abstract concept. The noun is not the thing it is applied to. So, for me being good, or virtuous, is not a state of being. It's a platonic ideal that can never be achieved completely. You're not Good or Bad. You are striving to be More Good.

And what I'm saying is that health does not make one a Good person, just as illness/lack of health does not make one a Bad person. You can't have one without the other, so the assignment of "good" to the state of being healthy does, in fact, make lack of health/illness "bad."

Health is morally neutral. The most hale and hearty person in the world, who by all medical and scientific standards is at the pinnacle of health, is no better of a person just because of his/her health than is a person with heart disease, diabetes, or any other state that is less than optimum health. But when health is set up as a "virtue," there is no room for moral neutrality. And that is what I have a problem with.

I really don't think that. If somebody's morbidly obese and they're smoking? Yeah, then I think they're putting too much stress on their heart. If I see somebody smoking who's pregnant? I feel judgmental about that. People who are thin? I don't presume anything about them until I know them.

I really wish we could leave the smoking out of this. It's really not an apt comparison. Because it is unequivocally not morally neutral, or a personal choice that only affects the individual. And I say this as someone who hasn't yet managed to kick the habit. Equating that to weight and diet choices is - well, replace smoking in your examples with eating unhealthy food and the passage reads a lot differently, doesn't it?

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

I am well aware of the relentless promotion of fad diets etc. but I don't think that most people think this.

Really? Because it sounds like you live in a different society than I do and I didn't think Bal'mer was that far off the grid. (Though okay, the junkie point probably has some validity.)

But when health is set up as a "virtue," there is no room for moral neutrality.

I think you're getting hung up on the word virtue automatically implying a moral judgment. To me, the word "virtue" is simply not loaded that way.

[eta: And maybe this feeds into the "you need to read the Bible to understand American culture" conversation over in Literary. I was raised in a VERY secular environment and have never read the bible outside of my Torah portion for my Bat Mitzvah, and so the virtue/sin dichotomy is waaaaaaay outside my frame of reference. I think it may be something you have to have grown up with.]