Medicalization is defined as the gradual social formation whereby medicine comes to exercise authority over areas of life that were not previously considered medical. Oftentimes, this means a process by which problems, viewed historically as simply socially deviant, become illnesses. Medicalization can occur with both mental issues, such as ADHD and grief, and physical issues, such as erectile dysfunction and fatness. One of the largest problems with medicalization is the construction of these diseases largely for the profit of the pharmaceutical industry. The gradual widening of medical categories to include more people, a concept known as diagnostic bracket creep, enables medical industries to profit off of those who are “sick.” When using …show more content…
364). By labeling women who lack a strong sexual prowess as “dysfunctional” it promotes the necessity of drugs to fix a problem. As drugs become increasingly involved in areas of life where they were not previously involved, a pattern of pharmaceuticalization begins to emerge. The unnecessary use of drugs to treat illnesses that were essentially created by the drug industries themselves is one of the most worrisome aspects of medicalization. Most people are generally unaware of the process by which medicalization occurs, and, as a result, are left feeling comforted by the increased involvement of medical doctors in their lives. For example, the creation and promotion of viagra to help men achieve better, longer-lasting erections has been overwhelmingly viewed as a positive (Hartley …show more content…
As Dr. Abigail C. Saguy discusses in the podcast What’s Wrong With Fat, the framing of an issue is critical to how to it’s viewed. Fatness, known in the medical world as obesity, has become framed as a disease, and an immediate indicator of bad health. Because of this negative stigma around fatness, fat people face rampant discrimination in their every day lives. However, rather than deconstructing people’s negative views of fatness, medicalization has ensured that fatness is viewed as a problem that must be directly treated. Weight loss surgeries such as gastric bypass surgery are essentially cosmetic surgeries, but are marketed as necessary medical procedures to “treat” obesity (Conrad
The concepts discussed within the article regarding medicalization and changes within the field of medicine served to be new knowledge for me as the article addressed multiple different aspects regarding the growth of medicalization from a sociological standpoint. Furthermore, the article “The Shifting Engines of Medicalization” discussed the significant changes regarding medicalization that have evolved and are evidently practiced within the contemporary society today. For instance, changes have occurred within health policies, corporatized medicine, clinical freedom, authority and sovereignty exercised by physicians has reduced as other factors began to grow that gained importance within medical care (Conrad 4). Moreover, the article emphasized
Preventative medicine comes with the potential for making our lives both better and worse. Today the world in which we live in has faced steady medicalization of daily existence. Many factors have contributed to the rise of medicalization. For instance the loss in religion, the increase of faith in science, rationality, progress, increased prestige and the power of the medical profession. The medical profession and the expansion of medical jurisdiction were prime movers for medicalization. Medicalization has also occurred through social movements. Doctors are not the only ones involved in medicalization now, patients are active collaborators in the medicalization of their problem. Critics try to argue for or against the idea that this leads to a favorable versus a non -favorable outcome. This increased establishment and development of medicine, including technoscience, has resulted in a major threat to health. The medicalization of normal conditions, risks the creation of medical diagnoses that are widely inclusive and that hold the potential for further expansion. Many biologically normal conditions, like shortness, menopause, and infertility, are currently considered medical problems. These naturally occurring states are now regarded as undesirable and deviant. This process is referred to as medicalization. Although they are considered deviant, however, the process of medicalization also removes culpability: a person’s problems can be ascribed to a chemical imbalance rather than seen as reflecting his or her character or accomplishments. Some of the articles I will be looking into are Dumit’s “Drugs for life” as well as Healy’s “Pharmageddon” and Cassel’s “Selling Sickness” to explore if this process of overmedicalization has le...
The article “Fat and Happy: In Defense of Fat Acceptance” is written by Mary Ray Worley, a member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. She writes of her firsthand experience as a “fat person” in society. Throughout the article, Worley explains what it is like to be obese and describes the way society treats those who have a weight problem. She attacks the idea of dieting, criticizes medical professionals for displaying an obscured view of health risks, and defends the idea of exercising to feel good rather than exercising to lose weight. Unfortunately, her article seems to reflect only own opinions and emotions rather than actual facts and statistics.
In sociological terms Medicalization can be defines in various ways. Medicalization is known to be a condition or behavior becomes defined as a medical problem requiring a medical solution (Weitz, 2012, P. 106). Another definition of how Medicalization can be defined is by a non-medical problematic concern and putting it into medical terms, from an illness or a
“Fat Acceptance”: An Argument Lacking Validity Cynara Geisslers’ essay “Fat Acceptance: A Basic Primer,” was published in Geez Magazine in 2010. The focus of the essay is to refute the pressure of society to be thin and promote self-acceptance regardless of size. While this essay touches on many agreeable points, it tends to blow many ideas out of context in an attempt to create a stronger argument. The article takes on a one-sided argument without any appropriate acknowledgement of the opposition, overlooks the risks of ignoring personal health, and has a strong feminist ideology associated towards the essay which tends to make the validity of her argument questionable.
“There is no real definition for disease. ” This is a claim that Melody Petersen makes in her book. Most would define disease as an abnormality in regards to health. This seems logical, but it leads to the following question : what is “normal” ? What is the definition of “healthy” ? Asking major pharmaceutical companies these questions will most likely lead to the following conclusion: disease is malleable. In other words, it is open to a certain level of interpretation. According to Petersen, giant drug manufacturers consider disease to be a business. Thus, they create a market out of people’s physical or emotional shortcomings. In 1998, Pharmacia, a large American manufacturer of prescription drugs,
Yet medical writers voiced more than a certain anxiety as to how to regulate marital pleasure, especially for the female partner. The conjugal "genital act" may have been the best medicine in preventing hysteria and maintaining general health, but only when dispensed in exactly the right dosage. Too much or too little could also unleash fatal female instincts, making marriage not the cure to a woman 's debauchery, past or future, but rather the gateway. Thus, while for men marriage itself seemed to offer enough of a cure for unregulated passion, for women another layer of surveillance was needed: enter the husband, dispenser and moderator of pleasure and passion. '” (Mesch
Peter Conrad’s book, The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders, examined several cases of human conditions, once viewed as normal, now considered as medical issues. Conrad defined this transition of human problems to disorders that are medically defined, studied, diagnosed and treated as “medicalization”. Specifically, Conrad discussed certain conditions, such as adult ADHD, as age related phenomena that have been medicalized. Throughout, Conrad demonstrated how these issues became medically defined because of the current research and financing structure of medicine in the United States. Those newly defined illnesses changed people’s perceptions and expectations of health and old age, thus dramatically altering society’s expectations of medicine and subsequent life quality. Conrad’s ethnography is a good example of the ethnomedical approach to medical anthropology that addressed several health conditions that are prominent in the United States. He culminated his book by arguing medicalization primarily serves as a form of social control, solving problems with individuals and not society. While the book clearly explained a wide range of negative causes and effects of medicalization, Conrad only acknowledged a few examples of successful resistance briefly in his last chapter. In order to empower its readers beyond education, the book should have examined these instances of anti-medicalization to find similarities and derive productive countermeasures for individuals to follow. Conrad thoroughly outlined the history, examples and influencing factors that promote medicalization, but failed to offer any combative solution to the resulting problems of medicalization.
This country places great value on achieving the perfect body. Americans strive to achieve thinness, but is that really necessary? In his article written in 1986 entitled “Fat and Happy?,” Hillel Schwartz claims that people who are obese are considered failures in life by fellow Americans. More specifically, he contends that those individuals with a less than perfect physique suffer not only disrespect, but they are also marginalized as a group. Just putting people on a diet to solve a serious weight problem is simply not enough, as they are more than likely to fail. Schwartz wants to convey to his audience that people who are in shape are the ones who make obese people feel horrible about themselves. Schwartz was compelled to write this essay,
In the larger picture, weight loss surgeries have become “the fast food” response to weight loss demands by the public. In my opinion, many patients are using weight loss surgeries as the weight loss mean rather than their own self-control and self-discipline; instead of for use by those who couldn’t lose weight by any other way. Unfortunately, not all the participants need the weight loss surgeries, and not all receive a long lasting benefit from the surgeries. As obesity spikes nationwide, so does the use (and potential abuse by overuse) of surgical procedures for weight loss.
...ed clinical trials: part 1-the efficacy of psychosocial interventions for male sexual dysfunction. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 9(12), 3089-3107. doi:10.1111/j.1743-6109.2012.02970.x
By saying that something is socially constructed, sociologists are drawing attention to how culture, society, and dominant hegemonic ideas at the macro level influence how people experience illness at an individual level. The social constructionist perspective of illness is trying to challenge the idea that the illness experience is natural. The biggest evidence in support of this claim is the existence of contested illnesses. “Contested illnesses are conditions in which sufferers and their advocates struggle to have medically unexplainable symptoms recognized in orthodox biomedical terms, despite resistance from medical researchers, practitioners, and institutions” (Barker 153). Contested illnesses are very much tied into the idea that society and its dominant ideas and ways of understanding impact the illness experience.
Today, obesity is swooping through the nation at such an alarming rate it could be considered an epidemic. In today’s society, obesity has become a new form of normalcy, it isn 't uncommon to see an individual who looks to be obese regardless of the person’s background or ethnicity. Historically, being heftier and rounded indicated a sort of indication of a status of wealth and good health, so it is important to note that the views upon obesity have shifted dramatically in terms of not just physical appearance, but more importantly health. The definition of obesity given by the dominant approach is a body mass index of over 30. With this approach, it is automatically assumed that if one has a high body mass index, they are of poor health. Though
Sociology of Health and Illness The sociological approaches focus on identifying the two sociological theories. We critically analysed the biomedical model and doctor-patient relationship. We also evaluated how the medical professionals exercise social control and the medical professional’s contribution to ill health. The difference between society and health is studied by sociologists in relation to health and illness.
Obesity is a serious condition that has generated a discussion on whether or not to be classified as a disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obesity is the body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, which is calculated based on the person’s height and weight. For years, our society has been facing the obesity challenge, which can be extremely costly once it leads to several diseases. Thus, because of the constant increase of percentage of people with obesity, the American Medical Association (AMA) proposed in June 18, 2013 to classify obesity as a disease. Their argument was that obesity increases the risks of countless health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension etc. Moreover, it increases morbidity and mortality. By considering obesity as a disease, their aim was to maximize researches and funding, which will focus on obesity from different medical and health approach levels. Their idea of classifying obesity as a disease was in accordance with the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s declaration of 1995. The institute declared, “ Obesity is a complex multifactorial chronic disease developing from multiple interactive influences of numerous factors.” In 2012, the CDC data showed 34.9% of adults obese and 17% of obese children. These numbers are very alarming especially since the struggle to deter certain factors contributing into this condition is still a challenge. Among the struggles, there are the people’s rights versus health regulations to keep them as healthy as possible like the former mayor Bloomberg regulation on soft drinks size cut. During CNN’s show GPS of Sunday 2, 2014, the host Zacharia...