Health Is Not a Service To Outsource: Reclaiming Autonomy in an Age of Learned Helplessness

There’s a question I keep returning to as both a physician and an observer of modern life: Who bears the final burden of responsibility for your health?

At first glance, this sounds like a philosophical question. But it has very real, practical consequences—and it’s distinct from a similar-sounding question: Who is responsible for the health of a population?

The latter is, in my view, a shared responsibility. Governments, healthcare systems, cultural norms, community structures, and yes, individuals themselves, all play roles in shaping public health. Clean water, access to nutritious food, safe neighborhoods, education, economic policy—these are collective domains.

But when it comes to your health—your daily habits, your body, your mindset—the responsibility is ultimately yours. Not your doctor’s. Not the CDC’s. Not your insurance company’s or your parents’ or your fitness tracker’s. Yours.

That’s an unsettling truth for some. But it’s also profoundly liberating.

The Slippery Slope of Outsourcing

We live in an age of hyper-specialization. Almost every domain of life has an expert, a service, or an app you can hire to take the wheel. Convenience is the reigning deity. But at what cost?

Michael Pollan wrote about this in the context of food, describing how the industrialization and outsourcing of cooking has disconnected us from the most basic act of nourishment:

“When we no longer have any direct personal knowledge of how these wonderful [food] creations are made—food will have become completely abstracted from its various contexts: from the labor of human hands, from the natural world of plants and animals, from imagination and culture and community. Indeed, food is already well on its way to that ether of abstraction, toward becoming mere fuel or pure image.”

The same abstraction is happening with health. As we hand off responsibility to increasingly complex systems—hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, wellness programs, government guidelines—we lose the sense that we can do anything meaningful ourselves. And once we lose that sense, we often stop trying.

Learned Helplessness and the Quiet Epidemic of Victimhood

This is where learned helplessness creeps in. It's a psychological state where people believe they have no control over a situation, so they stop attempting to change it—even when they could. In health, this manifests as resignation:

• “It runs in my family.”

• “The system is broken.”

• “I tried that once, and it didn’t work.”

• “I trust the experts. They’ll fix it.”

  
  

This isn’t humility—it’s surrender. It’s not realistic pessimism—it’s disguised passivity.

Learned helplessness doesn’t just erode your agency. It breeds dependence, ignorance, and a dangerous externalization of responsibility. It cultivates victimhood, a mindset that feels empowering because it comes with the illusion of moral high ground—look what they did to me!—but actually leads nowhere.

It’s easy to rail against the system. It’s harder to cook your own dinner, go for that walk, or admit you haven’t slept eight hours in a decade.

The Captain and the Crew

Autonomy is uncomfortable. Blame is easy.

But let’s not confuse feeling empowered with being empowered. The true seat of power lies in ownership—of your decisions, your attention, your habits.

Here’s a helpful analogy: your health is a ship. You are the captain. Your doctors, your therapists, your nutritionists, your yoga instructors, your government—they are crew members. Important, skilled crew members. But they do not steer the ship.

When you hand them the wheel entirely, you risk a slow drift into dependency. And dependency—especially when cloaked in institutional trust—can easily become control.

I’m not saying ignore medical advice. I’m saying ask good questions. Read the label. Learn how to cook. Move your body. Know your numbers. Challenge your assumptions. Make your choices.

A Quiet Revolution

Accepting responsibility for your health isn’t about perfection. It’s about participation.

It starts with small acts of defiance against passivity:

Cook a real meal.

Take the stairs.

Decline the second drink.

Question the algorithm.

Go outside.

Go to bed.

This isn’t just about health. It’s about reclaiming a piece of your autonomy in a world that’s constantly nudging you to hand it over.

So take the wheel. Listen to your crew. Chart your course.

And remember: No one is coming to save you. That’s the bad news.The good news? You have everything you need right now to save yourself.