Medicalisation: Analysis of Modern Health and Illness Experiences

This essay delves into the concept of medicalisation, exploring how various aspects of human life are increasingly framed as medical problems. It discusses the historical context, tracing the evolution of medicalisation from a sociological perspective, and examines both its positive and negative consequences on society. The essay highlights key aspects such as conceptual, institutional, and interactional medicalisation, along with the engines driving this process, including consumerism, biotechnology, and managed care. It uses obesity as a contemporary example to illustrate the complexities of medicalisation, discussing its impact on individuals, healthcare systems, and social perceptions, and explores the implications for treatment and societal attitudes. The essay argues that while medicalisation can reduce discrimination and improve access to care, it can also lead to over-diagnosis and the medicalisation of normal human experiences.

Running head: MEDICALISATION
MEDICALISATION
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Medicalisation can be described as the procedure by which certain aspects of the human
life come to be considered as the medical problems when the same problems were not considered
to be pathological before (Busfield 2017). However, in the domain of sociology, medicalisation
is not considered to be an entirely new concept. This assignment will discuss about the different
aspects of medicalisation in details arguing its positive and negative impacts on the society.
About forty years ago, Ivan Illich had been found to make accurate analysis of the
iatrogenesis of different types of ailments. This word has been mainly derived from a Greek
word and can be described as “originating from a physician/treatment” (Morphett et al. 2017).
According to the researcher, the term social iatrogenesis can be explained as the proliferation of
the disorders that are mainly seen to be caused by extending the medical categories in the
everyday lives. An example can be provided here for simplification of the concept. This can be
referred to the lowering of the levels of tolerance for different types of psychological discomfort
as well as sadness that in turn had brought about a steadier increase in the of the diagnosis of the
mental disorder of depression. Another of the study by (Van et al. 2016)) stated that during the
same period, the procedure of the indefinite medicalisation to be an important feature of the
society. The researcher stresses on the role of doctors in deciding what was normal and what
would be pathological. One of the authors who were researching on the history of medicalisation
was seen to be stating:
“From sex to food, from aspirins to clothes, from driving your car to riding the surf, it seems
that under certain conditions or in combination with certain other substances or activities or if
done too much or too little, virtually anything can lead to medical problems” (Coveney et al.
2019)

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Hill et al. (2016) had considered medicalisation in the form of three respects. One of
them is called the conceptual medicalisation where medical lexicons are used in defining non-
medical entities. Here, he had given an example where the natural drooping of breasts which was
previously considered as associated outcome after pregnancy and breastfeeding had now
medicalised and now diagnosed as the “mammary ptosis”. Another aspect associated with
medicalisation is called the institutional medicalisation. It has been found that when physicians
have the power for steering non-medical personnel which was later referred by other researchers
as the professional dominance (Van et al. 2016). This can be explained with examples like
physicians being managers in different hospitals without having academic title in management as
well as in business administration. Another aspect of medicalisation is called the interactional
medicalisation. There are many situations when a physician while interacting with the patient
participates in redefining a social problem into a medical one like homosexuality concept which
was later listed in the pathology in the DSM until that in the year of 1983.
Several of the literatures have also explained about the engines of medicalisation. These
engines of medicalisation are consumers, biotechnology as well as the managed care. Ryang
(2017) is of the opinion that consumer is one of the factor of medicalisation as health in seen to
be increasingly becoming and had already become a commodity. In the present generation,
people are seen to use the medical terminologies increasingly for analyzing their own health after
being influenced from watching television and also browsing the internet. Moreover, it is also
found that television advertisements and others on the radio, social media and others have made
people to consider health needs that otherwise they would not have thought about. Two examples
can be provided here. One of the new social representations of the health and illness that had
emerged is, like for instance, the representations of the idealized beauty as well as the different

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parallel treatments of cosmetic surgery. Many of the studies have also talked about the body
being increasingly considered as the “text” through which people can transmit signals as well as
information. Another important engine is the technology. This is one of the driving factors of
that of medicalisation for a number of reasons (Woodward and Shaw 2017). Firstly, it can be
stated that new diagnostic tools mean more of the chances in discovering illnesses. Then, in most
cases, the risk factors are considered to be pathological and then they are treated. The irony was
often many of the pharmaceutical firms came up with new diagnoses and also provided “right
treatment”. Another important engine for medicalisation is called the managed care. This can be
explained with the help an example (Tseng 2017). Depression can be explained as the condition
which is caused by chemical imbalances that legitimates the treatment that remains based on pill
rather than on the expensive psychotherapies. Based on these aspects, social problems can be
transformed into the medical ones. One of the researchers in United States has been seen to be
stating that “It seems likely that physicians prescribe pharmaceutical treatment for psychiatric
disorders knowing that these are the types of medical interventions covered under managed
care plans, accelerating psychotropic treatments for human problems” (Bell 2017). In the year
1997, it was found that laws which were based for the regulation of the pharmaceutical
advertisements became less restrictive and this resulted in the expenditure of the prescription
drugs ads to get increased by four times between the year 1998 and 2007. Many of the studies
have also supported the fact that increase in advertising had resulted in the stimulating diseases
mongering strongly. It has been found that one of the commonly utilized procedures in the
advertisements of the drugs is the strategy of overstating the risks of certain situations which in
true sense was actually misleading the consumers. People are increasingly encouraged for

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discovering some new doe of disorders through the process of self-diagnosis based on the check
list (McLennan et al. 2018).
Bell (2016) is of the opinion that in discourse of health, risks had been found to be
connected with that of the individualization of the social problems along with biological
reductionism and even shifting borders between the normal and that of the pathological. It has
become easier for the political institutions for embracing a clinical as well as biological
definition of particular disorders in place of addressing the social ways which underlie such
pathological conditions. Illness is now considered as an external risk and it has been found that
the responsibility of avoiding the disorders have shifted from the social policy to that of the
individuals even when the pathology of the disorders have been connected to social as well as
economic conditions. Health is not considered increasingly by the society to be an individual’s
responsibility (Lewis 2017). It has been expected that people should themselves avoid smoking,
being overweight and others. People are even encouraged for pushing back their ageing
procedure s much as possible. Now, it can be stated that “prevention is socially
constructed as an individual duty”. Moreover, it had been also seen that huge
investments have been particularly done in the diagnostics and the genetics that
have led to the neglect of the social causes of the disorders and thereby forcibly
considering them in term of biological problem resulting in medicalisation (Bergey
2017). However, some of the researchers have shown that in many of the rich and
developed countries, social determinants are found to be more influential in the
health status than an increase in the health expenditure, social and economic conditions
that are seldom mentioned in the biomedical discourse on health. This can be simplified with the

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help of an example. It might become much simpler and cheaper in labeling an unruly child as
someone who would be suffering from chemical imbalances instead of taking other important
governing factors into consideration. These may be the possible unemployment of the parents
along with other factors like poverty of the neighborhood and many other issues in the family. It
has been found that if depression is considered to be the effect of the lack of the neurotransmitter
called serotonin in the brain, then in place of the natural as well as the normal answers to the
condition of deprivation and stress, the role of social policy can be rejected thereby
medicalisation the entire issue (Brownword and Wale 2015).
Medicalisation of obesity can be described in details to put light on some of the positive
aspects of this topic. Researches that had been conducted in the past decades had suggested of an
explosion in the different treatment of conditions which were previously considered to be just
“problems” and solved by non-pharmacological approaches (Williams and Grabe 2015). Some of
the examples of the medicalised orders are “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),
menopause, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), alcoholism, , infertility anorexia, , sleep
disorders, and erectile dysfunction (ED)”. For example, morbid obesity is seen to require surgical
treatment but medicalisation had lowered the thresholds between what is considered to be
common “overweight” and that of morbid obesity thereby marking the increasing number of
affected individuals as sick. Researchers are of the opinion that considering obesity as disorder
would have fatal consequences on individual, society and even to that of the healthcare systems
(Prosen et al. 2019).
Individuals hold certain responsibilities in developing many health conditions like sport
injuries, high cholesterol, lung cancer and many others but still they are seen to receive medical
treatments without being questioned about their lifestyles. Medicalisation had led to obesity

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naming and discrimination against those with obesity had been reported in many areas of life like
that for example work, healthcare, relationships, education and even media. Many of the
researchers had found out positive aspects of medicalisation stating that it may reduce social
discrimination by pitting importance that some of the reasons for occurrences of obesity is
outside individual controls. Just like discrimination on the basis of the disorder of obesity is not
acceptable, similarly medicalisation may also advance the rights of the obese people. It might
result in the reduction of the stigma among the healthcare professionals by changing on the
views of the etiology. Hayes (2016) is of the opinion that physicians who used to share negative
biases of the society as a whole about obese patients can consider the treatment of the causes of
the illness to be a standard medical practice. It can be stated that although medicalisation might
bring out positive benefits to the obese individuals, it would also label them as sick regardless of
their health status. It can thereby become harmful for those who do not see themselves as ill or
who do not try to lose weight feeling that they cannot fight with physiological systems resulting
in obesity in place of stressing more on modifying lifestyle interventions though exercises and
diets. Still, researchers are found to be the supporter of medicalisation of obesity as they believe
that it would have more positive than negative consequences and would lead to benefit the
greater good of the people (Soderfeldt et al. 2017). They are of the opinion that gains from the
medicalisation obesity might result in offsetting potential harms when considered against the
outcomes of widespread and well-documented prejudice, stigmatization, and discrimination
Some implications for treatment of obesity also need to be discussed. Many of the
researchers are of the opinion that categorization of the obesity as a disorder by the federal
government as well as the medical establishment can result in leading to fundamental changes in
the treatment paradigms which would in turn have a profound effect on the care of the obese

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patients. If the time and effort required for engaging patients in the treatment protocols were
appropriately reflected in the remuneration for doing so, the different healthcare professionals
would be found to be far more likely to be doing so than they are currently. If the physicians
should be undertaking treatments for obesity in a routine manner, the pharmaceutical industry
would be found to be more inclined in developing new and better obesity drugs and then
concerned authorities would come under pressure to approve them (Carter 2017).
Medicalisation of obesity is found to have an effect on the education of the physicians.
Until now, obesity is not medicalised. Currently, is seen to be receiving little time or attention in
different medicals schools. The time that is provided to obesity in medical schools mainly
portray the health concern as lifestyle issues rather than as the physiological problems. It can be
stated that a greater investment in the education of obesity would change the attitudes of the
physicians towards the illness and how it is treated (Zarhin 2015). It would help handling obesity
surgery and medical approaches especially drug therapy successfully when physicians, health
administrators, health insurance companies, and employers would be given more attention
resulting in more access towards quality care.
Coming back to the main discussion of medicalisation in general, it can be seen that
medicalisation might occur at multiple levels like at the level of interaction where individual
patients or that that of the doctors are seen to seek for medical label or they are seen to apply
medical solution to the problem. This can also take place at the higher level where the different
definitions, priorities and also agendas are set and also resource allocations and recommended
strategies set and finalized (Fuster 2017). In this higher level, medicalisation analyses are found
to be particularly valuable. They help to uncover how certain issues in the health field can be
defined and how others can be excluded, how different problems can be constructed and what

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agendas would be set. This is the domain, where it proves to be a critical tool for the global
health.
Researchers have opined that medicalisation analysis have mainly helped in identifying
problems that had created disorders and patients and they have mainly overlooked social causes
for ill health and in turn it had promoted pharmaceutical treatments rather than broader political
change. Therefore, there has been a need for extending this analysis in exploring the
medicalisation of the global health agenda. Many of the studies have indeed talked about the
significance of the examining the relationship of medicine to emerging priorities and consensus
of global health. some of the studies have highlighted that biomedical advances singlehandedly
cannot suffice in alleviating health problems and do not have the technological solutions or the
ability in “curing” or treating been responsible historically for the public health gains. Some of
the extremely critical scholars have highlighted the political determinants of health and have
show the ways by which concentration of power, ideology and other dimensions of politics have
enormous impact on the health indicators and also inequalities in the societies (Binns et al.
2016). Some of the examples are seen to include different structural adjustment as well as the
poverty reduction strategies of various kinds, along with that of the decentralization of the health
systems and many other market-driven technical solutions forming from the neo-liberal
economic policies – all of which are criticized for the distortion and negatively impacting global
health and development.
It has been also been found that medicalisation of health produces “‘too simplistic a view
of making more modern medical treatments available to more people’ (Bell 2017). Carter (2017)
is of the opinion that medicalisation priority issues and the solutions in the context of the global
health can prove to be detrimental for the way the world is seen to be responding and resourcing

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various types of actions designed for alleviating poor health and poverty, redressing inequities
ad saving lives. It becomes significant to examine whether the global health agenda is being
designed and fashioned in these ways and this indeed is particularly relevant in the light of the
striking rise of the global health.
From the above discussion, it can be seen that medicalisation mainly defines the
transformation of the human conditions into medical problems and this aspect is increasing since
the last fifty years. In the past years, only the medical profession was considered to be the main
driver of the trend but in the recent years, several other factors have also come into play. These
are the engines of medicalisation like the consumerism, marketing for the pharmaceuticals and
that of the biotechnology. The risk of medicalisation is mainly seen to neglect the role of the
social determinists in shaping the human health. Therefore social politics have now given the
entire responsibility on each individual about their well-being of won health rather than
considering the social determinants being contributors of many health disorders. The disorders
are now being seen as the individual problem rather than looking at the disorders because of
social inequality, unequal distribution of power and resources. However, with the medicalisation
of obesity, many important positive aspects are also noted like decrease of social stigmatization
and discrimination with the pharmaceutical companies showing more significance in developing
obesity drugs helping to tackle the problems. It would also help in putting more focus on detailed
education on obesity by medical education boards if it is medicalised from lifestyle disorder.
However, in the global health context, it is still seen as a threat about how the world responds to
the poor health and poverty, inequalities and many others.

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