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.”

From Washington Times

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

From Seattle Times

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.”

From Slate

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.”

From New York Times

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

From The New Yorker