yuppie flu

noun

1. Informal.,  chronic fatigue syndrome.

Word History and Origins

Origin of yuppie flu¹

First recorded in 1985–90

Example Sentences

Some doctors dismissed it as psychosomatic and called it “yuppie flu.”

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For a long time, ME/CFS—which is also known as chronic fatigue syndrome and bears a strong resemblance to some cases of long COVID—was popularly referred to as “yuppie flu.”

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In 1985, after another apparent outbreak in Incline Village, Nev., near Lake Tahoe, the media piled on, derisively calling the condition the “yuppie flu” — or as Newsweek described it in 1990, “a fashionable form of hypochondria.”

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In the nineteen-eighties and nineties, C.F.S. was derisively nicknamed “yuppie flu” and “the Hollywood blahs.”

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Patient advocates say the condition has a history of being dismissed as “yuppie flu” or plain indolence.

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