Summary
Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) claimed that “70 percent” of health outcomes depend on individual choices, blaming Americans for poor health while Republicans plan to cut healthcare protections.
Marshall, a former OBGYN and leader of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Caucus, emphasizes nutrition and preventative care but ignores systemic issues like poverty and racism.
Proposals from the Trump administration and GOP Congress may weaken Affordable Care Act (ACA) protections, reduce access to care, and increase uninsured rates.
Marshall has also supported physician-owned hospitals, benefiting financially from the industry.
I agree with him to an extent. But people can’t make right choices if they don’t know what are the right choices. As with most American ills, it’s an education problem, which is systemic and not individual. So I’d lower his number to 50% now that we all have access to the internet and can research what a good diet looks like.
There is still a lot of disagreement about what a good diet looks like. The government propaganda on behalf of the agri-industrial complex that was the food pyramid is still around out there, for one.
It also takes time many people don’t seem to have to eat well. Ready-to-eat food is near universally bad for you, tho it is at least labeled as such if you read nutrition labels or visit the nutritional information page of your favorite chain.
I’m all for better information resources with the best information we do have about diet and any other health maintenance, to reduce “self-inflicted” health conditions. But, I’m against reducing funding for treatment of people’s current health conditions, whatever the cause.
There’s actually not that much disagreement. There’s disagreement about whether certain foods cause or increase the likelihood of diseases, like red meat and cancer. But it is almost universally accepted that a varied diet made up of Whole Foods like vegetables, grains, meat and fish and as little ultra processed foods as possible, is the best diet. Only social media influencers trying to get engagement are the ones saying that vegan,vegetarian or carnivore diet (or other more farfetched diets) are the “optimal diet”. That being said there’s some nuance to the ultraprocessed food label, because some of them could be good or at least better than most others of their kind, but as a rule of thumb if it doesn’t look like something that can grow out of the earth or came from an animal you can bet that it is ultra processed and is best avoided and eaten only on occasion.
It doesn’t take that much time either imo, just last Sunday I meal prepped for the entire week and it took me 3 hours. I know maybe not everyone can have the time for it but I’m confident in stating that most people can find 3 hours to meal prep, but they choose not to because they don’t know how to and the alternative is easier than trying to figure it out.
Education is the solution, school should be teaching people nutrition and food preparation because parents that don’t have these skills can’t teach them. It’s unbelievable that we will teach people calculus at school which they are unlikely to ever need in their lives unless they go into a technical field, but we won’t teach them the basic skills that keep us alive and healthy as a society.
Blame education levels when medical advertising is no longer allowed and when companies need to be able to substantiate any health claims. A huge part of the problem is our exploitational and dishonest system: we don’t need an education as much as a skeptical eye and being able to spot the scans, fakes, and lies
I still cannot abolish personal responsibility. But I agree with you, that that is also a big part of the issue but for me a skeptical eye comes from being well educated on at least basic stuff. When you don’t know much about anything it’s really hard to decide what is fact or fiction and because trying to untangle the lies from the truth is hard work most people just default to taking everything at face value and accepting it without much skepticism.