“health” did you ever hear of “mesilas jeshorim” ? did you ever heasr of rabbeinu Jonah? Did you ever hear of the mussar movement? Methinks that these authors tried their hardest to make “frum jews” accept th emitzvas.No one called the people they spoke to “kofrim”….
As far as your second point- the sad part is that you just parrot what you hear without knowing if it is true….sad really…