In today’s world, taking care of health is more than just a medical recommendation. It has become a cultural imperative, a daily practice, and sometimes even a way to belong. We are subtly encouraged — and gently coerced — to eat well, exercise more, sleep better, and measure everything: steps, glucose levels, mood, sleep cycles. Living a healthy lifestyle has become synonymous with responsibility, foresight, and even virtue. However, behind this apparent prudence lies a deeper logic: “salutism.”
What is Salutism?
Salutism is a cultural trend that turns health into a permanent moral obligation. It’s not enough to be healthy; one must be in optimal condition, anticipate issues, and correct them. What was once a state of being is now an ideal pursued with discipline, technology, and guilt. Unlike legitimate self-care, which involves listening to your body, preventing ailments, and maintaining physical and emotional balance, salutism becomes a constant mandate: measuring everything, doing healthy things, and never failing.
Despite its influence, salutism has largely gone unnoticed as a cultural and political phenomenon, operating silently as common sense. It’s present in the digital devices we use, health campaign messages, insurance policies rewarding ‘correct’ body mass indices, and even in how we judge ourselves for not doing enough.
The History of Salutism
One might think salutism is a recent phenomenon, born as a wellness trend or a byproduct of the fitness boom. However, if we follow a conventional timeline, its origin is traced back to 1980 when sociologist Robert Crawford coined the term ‘healthism’ to describe the growing shift of health responsibility from the state to individuals during the neoliberal transition, with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan leading this societal project.
However, the story doesn’t begin there. Salutism isn’t an invention of the 1980s but a contemporary expression of historical transformations where bodies have been progressively disciplined, quantified, optimized, and moralized. This genealogy aims to trace how a dominant way of life has been constructed, what conditions made it possible, what tensions it conceals, and what alternatives it silences.
From the Right to Health to Guilt for Being Sick
With the crisis of welfare states, the rise of neoliberalism, and reconfiguration of social policies, public health entered a new phase. The state transitioned from being a guarantor to an advisor. The health subject changed from passive patients to informed consumers. The discourse of self-care emerged as a sign of civic maturity. Yet, Robert Crawford warned that under the guise of empowerment, ill people were blamed, and the structural dimension of health was disabled.
Neoliberal salutism combines freedom and obligation: you’re free to do as you please, as long as you choose health. Prevention ceased being a right and became a constant duty.
The Technification of Salutism
With the rise of digitalization, biotechnology, and personalized medicine, salutism became technified and expanded. Health is no longer measured by the absence of disease but a series of quantifiable indicators that anticipate, predict, and manage risks. Smartwatches and biometric watches convert the body into a data interface, allowing everything to be measured and improved. The new ideal isn’t just being well; it’s continuous optimization.
While presented as empowerment, digital salutism demands constant self-surveillance. Imagine a 32-year-old woman with a smartwatch receiving five daily alerts: “You didn’t sleep enough, you walked less than yesterday, you’re now at moderate risk…” She’s unsure if she’s acting for well-being or anxiety. The healthy body also makes a good customer: for insurers, gyms, pharmaceutical companies, supplement businesses, and digital platforms.
The COVID-19 Pandemic: A Crisis of Salutism
The COVID-19 pandemic marked a peak — and crisis — of contemporary salutism. At its height, it confirmed all its logic: health control, digital surveillance, social discipline, moral punishment. Yet, it also exposed its limitations. The pandemic demonstrated that health is interdependent, and the “take care of yourself” logic isn’t enough. It became clear that not everyone could isolate, eat well, monitor their health, or access medical care. Structural conditions — precarity, inequality, informal labor — were decisive.
From then on, salutism isn’t just a silent mandate; it’s a field of dispute. Between the ethics of care and border control; between solidarity healthcare and behavior surveillance; between the right to health and the obligation to be healthy. The body becomes a border: of access, exclusion, responsibility. Health once again becomes political. Salutism, unmasked, enters a crisis.
Final Message
Salutism isn’t an excess of personal care or a simple wellness trend. It’s the result of a long history of discipline, morality, and management over bodies. We experience it as common sense today, but its genealogy reveals that it’s also a power device, a form of inequality, and a symbolic barrier.
Although often associated with youth — toned bodies, biometric watches, self-care challenges — salutism also affects older adults with different demands. Under the ‘active aging’ banner, they’re no longer accompanied; their health is managed, measured, monitored. They’re expected to remain lucid, functional, and self-sufficient, as if fragility or dependence were personal failures. Instead of accommodating their fragility, salutism demands performance. Rather than caring for them, we ask them to care for themselves alone.
Distinguishing self-care from mandatory norms is crucial. What should be a personal care gesture turns into a merit measure, a constant demand, a form of control. Critically reviewing salutism doesn’t mean rejecting health; it’s about liberating it from its coercive, exclusive, and blame-inducing forms. It’s about imagining alternative care forms based on reciprocity, structural justice, and acceptance of shared fragility.
What if what we call “healthy” today isn’t a form of well-being but obedience?
