A Sociological Eye

  When I was growing up, gathering with the Italian-immigrant quadrant of my family meant that every meal began with the same ritual: everyone present wishing the rest of the family "buon appetit'!" May you have a good appetite! May you feel hungry, find this meal delightful and satisfying, and eat well. This is a very common world practice. The French say "bon app é tit;" in Finnish it is h yvää ruokahalua;  and in Korean  맛있게 드세요 .  Why? People wish one another pleasure in a meal as a social gesture of goodwill, just as you'd wish someone a good trip when they are about to travel. It's a gesture of hospitality. And it is also a wish for health, because we must eat well to survive, and traditional societies have always had a dread, not just of famines, but of the failing individual appetite that signifies that someone they care for is ailing. Will someone please remind contemporary American doctors of this fact? Recently, there's been a lot of repor...

I really despise the "wellness" program we are forced to participate in or pay $150 more per year per family member in my employer-provided health insurance. It is presented as all about caring for us and empowering us to improve our own health. But in fact it coercively imposes bad health advice, often relies on surveillance and fear of humiliation, and fails to take into account any but seven health conditions we may actually be dealing with. Mostly it seems to focus on the idea that we all need to lose weight. Recently as a "gift" I was sent a "WebMD Health and Wellness Coaching Well-Being Journal." I'm supposed to use it to track my progress in achieving my "wellness goals." On the face of it, that's fine, but the implementation is so problematic. For example, there's a small section that shows us how we are supposed to figure out what barriers are keeping us from reaching the "wellness goals" given to us by the journal,...