Word.ws English Dictionary

healthism

healthism noun: the use of propaganda and coercion (as by government or advertising) to impose established norms of health.

Noun

healthism (uncountable)

  1. The use of propaganda and coercion (as by government or advertising) to impose established norms of health.
  2. (derogatory, uncommon) An excessive preoccupation with one's health.
    • The locals are not much restrained by the old puritanical or Protestant code. Instead, they have constructed their own ethos of environmentalism, healthism, and egalitarianism that makes it bad form to spend money lavishly or live ostentatiously.1997 September 15, David Brooks, “The Rise of the Latte Town”, in Washington Examiner
  3. (derogatory, uncommon) Discrimination on the basis of one's health status.

Origin of healthism

From health + -ism.

Words formed from healthism

Questions about healthism

What does healthism mean?
Healthism means the use of propaganda and coercion (as by government or advertising) to impose established norms of health.
What part of speech is healthism?
Healthism is a noun.

Words near healthism in the dictionary

  1. healthify
  2. healthifying
  3. healthily
  4. healthiness
  5. healthinesses
  6. healthism
  7. healthist
  8. healthists
  9. healthless
  10. healthlessness
  11. healthlike

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: healthism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “healthism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/healthism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.