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What’s Wrong With Natural Living?
By Wendy Priesnitz
The concept of natural living seems to bother many people, possibly
because it threatens corporate profits.
Natural living is increasingly popular
around the world. Many people are realizing that we have the right to a
clean environment, that the planet is in danger of becoming uninhabitable
unless we take better care of it, and that we can’t easily
trust
corporations and their handmaiden governments to provide us with clean
air, water, and food. Consequently, we are also understanding the
interconnections among the various aspects of life: Natural living comprises
what we eat, how we make a living, where we live, how we get around, how we
educate ourselves.
Providing information and inspiration for natural
living in its broadest sense has been my life’s work. Natural parenting,
natural living, natural learning…those are all topics you will read about in
our magazine, including Natural Life. The business is over forty years old.
However, natural living is, in some contexts, as controversial as it has
ever been.
Now, the word “natural” would seem to be a
straightforward offspring of the word “Nature.” But it has dozens of
meanings and sub-meanings. It’s used in mathematics, economics, science,
music, computer programming, childbirth, sociology, medicine, education,
and, of course, marketing. In current usage, it also has many synonyms,
including reasonable, appropriate, proper, expected, innate, inherent,
lifelike, realistic, legitimate, habitual, normal, healthy, native, simple,
non-artificial, genuine, unadorned, real, authentic, unstudied, unaffected,
and straightforward.
So we shouldn’t be surprised that it is a controversial
word. For years, it has been especially problematic in the prepared foods
industry. In relation to food, the Oxford English Dictionary
defines it in this way: “Involving no artificial or man-made ingredients,
chemicals, etc.; ecological, organic; spec. (of food and drink) containing
no artificial colorings, flavorings, or preservatives.” That definition
makes it alluring to marketers. According to the market research company
Nielson, packaged foods labeled “natural” outsell those marked organic by a
substantial margin. That’s why a survey by Harris Interactive found that
eighty-three percent of the U.S. public would like to see the government
define the term.
But aside from all of that, there are some things that
just are natural. For instance,
you’d think that a parenting practice as natural (and physically and
emotionally healthy) as breastfeeding would be immune from the controversy
over the word “natural.” Nevertheless, in March 2016, an
article in the journal Pediatrics urged health professionals to
stop saying that breastfeeding is natural, arguing that doing so gives the
impression that natural parenting practices in general are healthier than,
well, whatever you call the other kind.
In the article, entitled “Unintended Consequences of
Invoking the ‘Natural’ in Breastfeeding Promotion,” Jessica Martucci and
Anne Barnhill, Medical Ethics and Health Policy researchers at Penn
Medicine, wrote:
“…we are concerned about breastfeeding promotion
that praises breastfeeding as the “natural” way to feed infants. This
messaging plays into a powerful perspective that “natural” approaches to
health are better… Promoting breastfeeding as “natural” may be ethically
problematic, and, even more troublingly, it may bolster this belief that
“natural” approaches are presumptively healthier.”
Further, they think that the use of the word natural
should be curtailed in general, claiming that it is associated with such
“problematic” practices as home birth, homeschooling, and the rejection of
GMO foods, and that natural parenting movements are contributing to the
decline in vaccination rates.
Now, I know quite a lot about those natural living
topics. They are, after all, the raison d’être for Natural Life Magazine, as
well as the others published by my company: Natural Child
Magazine, Life
Learning Magazine, and
Child’s Play Magazine.
In fact, the researchers Martucci and Barnhill wrote directly about the
problematic likes of me in a separate guest commentary at
Philly Voice:
“It doesn’t take much internet digging to find
some of the potentially problematic implications for a public health
campaign built around an argument that ‘natural’ is better. A search for
‘natural living’ turns up a variety of sites devoted to natural parenting.
Parenting blogs and natural news sites often discuss practices and ideas
ranging from home-birth and consuming the placenta after birth to
homeschooling, breastfeeding, and homeopathy. But these are also spaces
where one might expect to run across writers and commenters expressing
concerns about the necessity and safety of childhood vaccinations and the
promotion of immunity through ‘natural’ disease and healing processes.”
They went on to warn:
“Studies have shown that anti-vaccination
sentiment tends to overlap with reliance on and interest in complementary
and alternative medicine, skepticism of institutional authority, and a
strong commitment and interest in health knowledge, autonomy, and healthy
living practices.”
Yep, they nailed that part! Encouraging educated
skepticism of institutional authority underlies all of my work. Now, I don’t
know for sure if the researchers were funded by Big Education, Big Ag, Big
Pharma, or its little sister Big Formula. But, whether or not you believe
that breastfeeding is a sort of gateway drug to other ”radical” natural
parenting practices, I smell something very much like corporate influence.
And in my world, even the faintest whiff of that gives me more confidence in
my own way – in the natural living and learning way.
In a Natural Life Magazine article entitled
Natural Reflections: What Does the Word “Natural” Really Stand For?
Professor of Environmental Ethics Gene Sager noted that:
“The natural life today is natural in a new key:
to act in harmony with Nature, we need to take a well-informed, consciously
conservationist approach. I have emphasized the ideas of ‘well-informed’ and
‘consciously.’ In a sense, we have become watchdogs on guard against greedy
corporations, sluggish governments, and a public manipulated by marketeers
and the media. All this requires constant vigilance and effort.”
All those players can be seen in the controversy about
the use of the word “natural.” If it wasn’t such a compelling idea, Sager’s
“marketeers” wouldn’t be as attracted to its use as they are. And, on the
other hand, there wouldn’t be the concern about it being over-used by those
of us who can think for ourselves.
For me, the bottom line in all of this controversy
about natural living and natural parenting is this: Don’t pay attention to
what anyone else – a marketer, a corporation or its representative, a PhD
researcher or scientist or another a member of academia, or any other
self-described expert – thinks or instructs you to do. These days, they
could have a vested interest in persuading you that there is something wrong
with natural living. So do your own research, trust yourself (and your
children), and follow your own instincts. You might end up agreeing with
what you are told. Or not. But I have found that Mother Nature is as
trustworthy a guide as any.
Wendy Priesnitz is
the editor and co-founder of Natural Life Magazine and the author of 13
books.
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