alanaisreading:

[Caption: Health is never a measure of human worth, written over photos of Teddy Roosevelt, RJ Mitte, Miles Davis, Helen Keller, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Michael J. Fox, Stephen Hawking, and Lucille Ball]

  • Teddy Roosevelt, former president with epilepsy and asthma
  • R.J. Mitte, actor with cerebral palsy
  • Miles Davis, jazz musician with sickle cell disease
  • Helen Keller, writer and social activist with hearing and visual impairment
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt, former president with polio
  • Michael J. Fox, actor with Parkinson’s disease
  • Stephen Hawking, physicist with ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)
  • Lucille Ball, actress with rheumatoid arthritis

When you use phrases like, “as long as you’re healthy” these are just a few of the people that your language is excluding.  No one owes you health.  Being healthy does not make you a good person, and being unhealthy does not make you a bad person.  The state of a person’s body does not reflect their soul, their mind, or their worth as a human being.