Heilsurækt

Heilsurækt is the Icelandic term often used to refer to the sociocultural concept commonly translated as healthism. It denotes a process in which health is moralized and placed at the center of personal identity and social life. In this view, individuals are expected to actively manage their bodies through diet, exercise, preventive care, and health monitoring, while health becomes a key criterion of virtue, responsibility, and social worth.

The concept emerges from late 20th-century social theory and public health discourse, drawing on ideas about medicalization, risk, and neoliberal governance. Healthism treats health as a personal project shaped by lifestyle choices but also as a public good shaped by policy, institutions, and market forces. It is linked to the rise of the wellness industry, preventive medicine, and surveillance technologies that track health indicators, as well as to broader tendencies to govern populations through notions of risk and self-management.

Critics of heilsurækt argue that it can stigmatize those who are ill or have limited means to engage in health-promoting behaviors, and that it may obscure structural determinants such as socioeconomic status, environment, and access to care. The concept is often used to analyze tensions between individual responsibility and collective support, as well as the commodification of health through marketing of fitness, diet, and wellness products. Proponents contending that health empowerment can improve well-being emphasize informed choice and preventive benefits, while acknowledging the need to address social inequalities.

In contemporary discourse, heilsurækt intersects with public health policy, workplace wellness, consumer culture, and digital health tracking, illustrating how health norms shape behavior, social expectations, and power relations in modern societies.