As a man (boy/bloke/geezer/chap) I am finding it more and more, as time goes by, that people find my healthy lifestyle to be one or more of the following:
- Amusing;
- Feminine; and/or
- Uncool
I’m not sure where this concept comes from, but it seems in society that if you are healthy and mindful of your health and diet then you are somehow uncool.
Example: I was literally, right this minute just eating some crackin’ hummous on a rice cracker when my male peers started to jeer me and tell me that I needed to swap it for a bacon sandwich.
Whats the deal with that then? Of course it doesn’t bother me and I am definitely getting quicker and more effective at describing what the ‘green stuff’ is in my water bottle without getting too many turned up noses - but where has this social norm come from? Why do people (particularly men) see being healthy as an undesirable social trait?
2 responses so far ↓
1 Helen // Jun 12, 2006 at 1:04 pm
I don’t think it’s the being healthy that is viewed as an undesirable social trait. I think it’s the fact of putting so much effort into it. My theory about that is that anything you do which might be considered an improvement on current social behaviour is considered a threat by your peers, who will then seek to put an end to your efforts by trying to make you embarassed about yourself. The threat is because they might be expected to follow your good example, which is hard work, or even worse, they might be compared to you in an unfavorable way. I think it applies to all fields rather than just health. Just my opinion, though.
2 Ross // Jun 13, 2006 at 1:53 am
Hi Helen
I think you are spot on. And you are right when you say that it doesnt only apply to health. For a long time I had kept any sort of self-improvement to myself and always winced with embarrasment whenever I could hear my girlfriend talking to other people about it/me from another room - but now I really couldn’t give a s*** to be honest. People think what they think - and besides, it is pretty hard to keep it all to myself now that everyone under the sun knows that I run this site!
I guess we have just got to ignore the pessimists and the negative types out there and keep focussed on what we are doing. From having a look at your blog (which is awesome by the way) - I take it you have expereinced this too since you have started running?
Ross
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