'Middle-class Indian homes don’t raise you to be healthy': A marketing professional’s truth bomb

What if your biggest health struggle wasn’t about willpower—but the way you were raised? In a searing LinkedIn post, Shashank Sharma reflects on a brutal realisation: the Indian middle class, for all its discipline and ambition, never taught its children that their bodies matter.

“I was wondering why I struggle with fitness so much,” he writes. “And then it hit me—I come from a culture that never taught me my body matters.”

From skipping breakfast to normalising burnout, Sharma lays bare how health is often sidelined in homes that prioritised marks, marriage, and manners over mindfulness, movement, and mental wellness. 

“Middle-class homes don’t raise you to be healthy. They raise you to be safe. To be obedient. To be employable. Not to be strong, ambitious, or mindful.”

Instead of rest, there were remedies. Instead of awareness, there was avoidance. “We grew up in homes that feared diagnosis more than disease,” Sharma writes, pointing to how real sleep, gut health, and stress management were never part of growing up. Pain was patched, not understood. Exhaustion was worn like a badge of honour.

The post pulls no punches in describing the long-term toll of this cultural neglect — the disc issues, the diabetes, the insomnia, the stubborn weight — all framed as the body’s delayed rebellion after years of being ignored. 

“We build careers. We raise families. We tick every box society gave us. But the body we carry through it all? Ignored. Until it screams.”

And the remedy, Sharma suggests, starts not just with habits but with language. “Maybe it’s not willpower we lack. Maybe it’s vocabulary.” Because in a world where adult life is often measured in fatigue, he argues, fitness isn’t a luxury — it’s survival.