Do we live in different Americas? Benefiting yourself is revered in America, in my experience.
Yes, if you take up exercise and yoga and healthy eating, that could be seen as 'benefitting yourself'.... but it is OK only because those things are cloaked suffering. They're things you don't want to do, they cause pain or discomfort and involve avoiding doing the things you would prefer to do.
I am open to a counterpoint. I might just not be thinking of something where doing something pleasurable because you care for it for your own benefit is seen as a positive, something a mother would love to hear her child is pursuing, something that would be met with people at a party saying 'good for you!' that is, at the bottom of it, just fun.