I was gratified – with discreditable Schadenfreude – by the recent report about the impact of “Fitbits” and other health-tracking devices on the health system. I have never liked them, and now I feel vindicated. The report from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges expresses concern that GPs could be overwhelmed by patients seeking consultations because data from their tracking device indicates that they have heart or other health problems, when in fact they are perfectly normal. No doubt these devices promote hypochondriacal behaviour in those already be prone to it. But the deeper issue is the social effect of our public language about health and sickness.
I can’t remember the last time I read a newspaper that didn’t contain some “news” relating to health: risks, treatments, nutrition and lifestyle, public health crisis, GP and hospital services. The dominance of narratives of health and medicine in the media reflects what sociologists call “medicalisation”: the process by which human conditions and experiences come to be defined and treated as medical problems.
21 February 2019, The Tablet
Life is for health, rather than health for life; death becomes the ultimate medical problem
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