Health nut

[amastan]

What does the expression "I am a bit of a health nut" mean?

 

[Tdol]

It means that the person is very interested, possibly a bit obsessed, by his or her health, doing lots of things to try to stay in good health.

 

[emsr2d2]

We get two adjectives from the same idea.

I'm nuts about cooking.
I'm nutty about science fiction films.

 

[CommuniKate]

somebody who is really health conscious

 

[emsr2d2]

It means somebody who is really health conscious.

See above. CommuniKate, you are welcome to try to help other learners but you must make it clear in your post that you are not a teacher. Please make sure you write in complete sentences and use correct capitalisation and punctuation.

 

[probus]

somebody who is really health conscious

Yes, but perhaps not very well-informed.

Some health nuts get their health information from unreliable sources like newspapers and magazines.

 

[Skrej]

It's very common (at least in AmE) to tag 'nut' onto another noun to show that a person is very interested or enthusiastic about something, almost to the point of obsession. It can be used both as both a pejorative and as self-deprecation.

I suppose you could use any combination you want, but some of the more commonly heard ones are:

health nut
gun nut
car nut
baseball/soccer/sport nut

 

[Tdol]

In the US, do people use gun nut in anything other than a pejorative sense? I only hear it used negatively on this side of the pond, where things are very different on this issue.

 

[probus]

In the US, do people use gun nut in anything other than a pejorative sense? I only hear it used negatively on this side of the pond, where things are very different on this issue.

I am afraid they do. That favourable usage even occurs here in Canada, where legal controls on guns are similar to those in Europe, and not like the US at all.

Cf. CanadianGunNutz.com

 

[GoesStation]

Yes, but perhaps not very well-informed.

Some health nuts get their health information from unreliable sources like newspapers and magazines.

And Facebook. Misinformation flows around in circles, masquerading as real information that's backed up by science. If you actually follow the impressive-looking links, you will eventually get back to where you started.

 

[Skrej]

In the US, do people use gun nut in anything other than a pejorative sense? I only hear it used negatively on this side of the pond, where things are very different on this issue.

Yes, although that's yet another silly level of debate on the topic.

Amongst firearm enthusiasts, there's a lot of rhetoric about whether pro-gun people should or shouldn't use the term to describe themselves. Some pro-gun people feel that adopting the term serves to further the anti-gun viewpoint as us being 'crazy', blah blah blah, while others maintain that avoiding it somehow professes shame in our beliefs, blah blah blah.

No matter which viewpoint you take on any given issue, you'll find subdivisions within subdivisions from those ostensibly on the same side, because some people just like to argue for the sake of arguing until the disagreeing become more important than whatever it is you're disagreeing about.

Sometimes people want to continue the chicken vs. egg debate when the real question is whether there's any protein on the plate.

 

[Tdol]

Thanks- that was what I was wondering about. :up: