How (and why) To Change The Culture of Health

Our “culture of health” is like the matrix, as defined by Morpheus:

“The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out of your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work … when you go to church … when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.” 

Let’s just assume for a moment that we’re not actually floating in pink gooze, plugged in by the back of our heads into the power plant needed by the creepy virus-looking machines for their Duracell farm. 

Nevertheless, there is a kind of a matrix “all around us … the world that has been pulled over our eyes”. It’s less nefarious (it sounds a bit boring actually), but no less invisible and invasive, pervasive and persuasive.

It is the set of assumptions that we all carry. The things we just believe about health — cooking is too hard, eating healthy is too expensive, you have to be an athlete to be fit, and meditation is for monks and retired supermodels.

These assumptions are implicit, unquestioned, and so not so much “taken on faith” (because that would assume you actively believe them) but silently making things make sense for you. Your assumptions are your own man behind the curtain.

Obviously, THIS is the underlying issue we face. The carbs, the fats, the points and proteins are distractions; whether you’re on a cave man diet, still tremble before an egg yolk, or worry whether you should go vegan vegetarian or lacto-ovo-whatever.

All this week I’m writing about the elements of our disordered culture of health. It’s time for us to pull back the curtain, and throw some light on the biases that have led us over a cliff. In the end, I want you to understand how (and WHY) you should change how your think about all the parts of our culture of health.