It's entirely consistent to imagine that if the rich are personally responsible for their own success then the poor must be responsible for their own failure. They're poor because they haven't made the right decisions, I'm rich because I have.
Whilst on a moments reflection the self serving stupidity of this world view is obvious, the indications are that if even simple facts about the world don't fit in with our world view it's more likely that we'll ignore the facts rather than change the view.
If you live in one of the world's major polluted cities, you have little choice but to breathe in the noxious air. If you haven't got access to safe drinking water then you have little choice but to drink what's available. But if you smoke, drink too much alcohol, eat too many burgers, drink too many cans of Coca Cola or take too little physical exercise then you clearly do have a choice. You can make the decision not to smoke, you can decide to walk to the shops rather than take the car. But this ignores the fact that our decisions take place within a broader context.
For example, there are many places in the United States where choosing to walk to the shops not only poses great practical difficulties (there's a freeway to somehow get across and the nearest mall is 5 miles away) but social barriers as well. To put this simply, when its a strong social norm to go everywhere by car, and walking is seen as a badge of poverty, it takes a tough, eccentric, person to make the decision to walk.
The decisions we make depend on the context in which we find ourselves. The prevalence of lifestyle illnesses, such as those caused by excessive calorie consumption or inadequate levels of physical activity, change as the social or environmental context changes. For example, it's now well established that citizens in the UK had a much healthier, though undoubtedly more boring, diet during the second world war and the period of rationing that followed than they do now. Recent studies suggest that pedestrian friendly neighbourhoods have lower rates of heart disease.
If levels of physical activity are seen as a purely personal choice, rather than one modulated by a social or environmental context, then it's easy for those who are active, who've joined the gym or the boot camp, to regard this as a badge of personal virtue. Hence the incessant sharing of who does what in the gym, who's been to which boot camp or who's cycled where and how fast on Strava. The barely disguised implication in all of these self promotional posts is "If I can do it, why can't you?"
You could probably guess that I'm not a boot camp kind of guy. I'll go off for a bike ride or a walk in the hills simply because I like doing it. If there's ever a challenge it's usually just to go all the way there and come all the way back. I feel no need to have someone shouting at me to make me do it. But, each to their own. If people want to obsessively quantify what they do and then brag about it then it's probably better than if they didn't do it at all. But I would be interested to find out if these habits of exercise are maintained when there isn't an audience, or the audience gets bored and moves onto something else.
My real problem with seeing lifestyle issues as all about personal choice, without regard to context, is that it fails to deal with the big problem of low levels of physical activity and poor diet within the population at large.
A little while ago a local councillor posted about her latest boot camp exploits. I commended her on her efforts but suggested that now that she was a politician it would be good if she took up the broader issue of physical inactivity within the population at large. In reply she said she was NOT A POLITICIAN ( her capitals). You might guess her political affiliations.
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