# Is it proper grammar to say that one "eats healthy" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 8, 2005, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-proper-grammar-to-say-that-one-eats-healthy/330112 "2005-11-08T21:40:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![arh710](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ba0ec/32.png) [@arh710](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arh710)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2005, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-proper-grammar-to-say-that-one-eats-healthy/330112/1 "2005-11-08T21:40:22Z")
I feel like I keep coming across the phrase “eating healthy,” as in “I’m trying to eat healthy and exercise more.” Is this proper grammar? Shouldn’t it be “eating healthily” or “healthfully”? I thought healthy was an adjective (i.e. a healthy body), so therefore it shouldn’t be used to modify the verb ‘eat.’ Any thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2005, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-proper-grammar-to-say-that-one-eats-healthy/330112/2 "2005-11-08T21:59:41Z")
Strictly speaking, _healthy_ is an adjective. As such, the phrase _eating healthy_ is grammatically incorrect, and should be _eating healthily_, instead. Nevertheless, common usage generally dictates proper language, and therefore the former is increasingly deemed acceptable. ---
**Author:** ![olpeculiar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/34f0e0/32.png) [@olpeculiar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/olpeculiar)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2005, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-proper-grammar-to-say-that-one-eats-healthy/330112/3 "2005-11-08T22:13:35Z")
What QED said. Much the same as to say that a tomato is a “healthy food” is most likely incorrect - unless you’re talking about it being free of disease. Unless your vegetables are out running laps, they are _healthful_, not _healthy_. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2005, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-proper-grammar-to-say-that-one-eats-healthy/330112/4 "2005-11-08T22:43:15Z")
It’s a seldom-noted fact of grammar that other verbs than “to be” and “to seem” take predicate copulatives. There is a slight difference between “to eat healthy” and “to eat healthily.” The first is an elision for “to eat (food which will enable one to remain) healthy”; the second, “to eat in a healthy manner.” Someone consuming a diet providing the proper nutrients and omitting additives (from oil in fried food to MSG) that would tend to cause long-term problems is “eating healthy,” regardless of the manner in which they consume their food. Eating “healthily” to me has as much to do with proper mastication and lack of stress at meals as it does with the content of those meals. Wolfing down a lunch between high-profile meetings, no matter its “healthiness” content, is not “eating healthily.” Compare the proverbial two dogs, one fresh from an encounter with a skunk and a roll in the swamp and the other with a severe upper respiratory infection, who respectively smell bad and smell badly. The idea, of a relationship which is not equality, created between subject and predicate adjective, is much the same. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2005, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-proper-grammar-to-say-that-one-eats-healthy/330112/5 "2005-11-08T23:03:11Z")
Heh. I just saw [Kiss Kiss Bang Bang](http://imdb.com/title/tt0373469/) last night (great flick, by the way…this is the film _Get Shorty_ wanted to be) and one of the most amusing gags is about the appropriate use of the word “badly.” (“It’s an adverb, you idiot!”) We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion on grammar. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-proper-grammar-to-say-that-one-eats-healthy/330112/6 "2005-11-09T15:26:09Z")
It’s short for “healthy animals.” It goes with the assumption that meat packing houses don’t butcher sick beasts.😉 ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-proper-grammar-to-say-that-one-eats-healthy/330112/7 "2005-11-09T16:11:57Z")
And hand-in-hand is the slogan Eat Good. Shouldn’t it be Eat Well? ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-proper-grammar-to-say-that-one-eats-healthy/330112/8 "2005-11-09T20:27:37Z")
> [@olpeculiar](#): > > What QED said. Much the same as to say that a tomato is a “healthy food” is most likely incorrect - unless you’re talking about it being free of disease. Unless your vegetables are out running laps, they are _healthful_, not _healthy_. Not really. This is a distinction that was invented in the 1880s; “healthy” used to mean “conducive to good health” has been in use for hundreds of years. It’s just a recent thing that people have decided to get a bug up their ass about “healthy food”. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-proper-grammar-to-say-that-one-eats-healthy/330112/9 "2005-11-09T20:30:44Z")
For that matter, I’ll add that it’s quite usual in English to assign adjectives to things that strictly speaking evoke them rather than literally can be described by them. “A happy coincidence” or “a sad turn of events” are not at all exceptional and no authority that I’ve heard of decries them. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-proper-grammar-to-say-that-one-eats-healthy/330112/10 "2005-11-09T20:38:00Z")
I don’t really want to derail this thread, but I want to rail about one aspect of the OP. I think the entire concept of eating healthy is a misnomer. It’s certainly an oversimplification and one that gets far too much use, IMHO. Given the fact that everyone needs a wide variety of nutrients, from sugar to fat, it’s pretty much impossible to eat unhealthy. Unless, of course, you are eating poison, or you are eating an excess of some material that you have a sufficient amount of in your diet already or you are depriving yourself of some basic nutrients. Eating **IS** healthy. Not eating is unheathy. Normal, moderately balanced diets, which take no effort or attention, really, should be considered the norm, and overeating, or deliberately eating too much or too little of certain nutrients should be considered eating unhealthy foods or amounts. Done. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2005, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-proper-grammar-to-say-that-one-eats-healthy/330112/11 "2005-11-09T23:57:16Z")
> [@CC](#): > > . . . it’s pretty much impossible to eat unhealthy. . . . Normal, moderately balanced diets, which take no effort or attention, really, should be considered the norm, and overeating, or deliberately eating too much or too little of certain nutrients should be considered eating unhealthy foods or amounts. Hmmm. This is what they call “violent agreement.” “Eathing healthy” means a normal, moderately balanced diet, getting proper nutrition, and not overeating. Of _course_ it’s possible to eat unhealthy; that’s one reason that obesity is so common in the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-proper-grammar-to-say-that-one-eats-healthy/330112/12 "2005-11-10T00:02:23Z")
It also depends on person. “I eat heathy”, while Janis “eats healthy”. ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-proper-grammar-to-say-that-one-eats-healthy/330112/13 "2005-11-10T00:28:17Z")
> [@olpeculiar](#): > > Unless your vegetables are out running laps, they are _healthful_, not _healthy_. genetic engineering has gone too far.