In his book The Medicaliztion of Society, Peter Conrad defines medicalization
as the “process by which nonmedical problems become defined and treated as
medical problems, usually in terms of illness and disorders,” using medical
terminology, medical framework, and medical treatment interventions (4). Over
the last decade, due to not only physicians, but also individuals, social
groups, and pharmaceutical companies, there has been a trend towards
medicalization and medical jurisdiction leading to an increasing “number of
life problems,” everyday life events, and “problems that previously were not
deemed to fall within the medical sphere” now being defined as “medical” (3,4).
Thus, medicalization encompasses deviance from and across a broad range of
normal life activities.
Conrad touches on a number of
positive consequences as a result of medicalization. These include reduction of
stigma, allowance of individuals to function better in society, acceptance of
various social groups, access to accommodations, extension of the sick role,
legitimization of individuals’ concerns and ailments, increasing awareness of
social pressures, and increasing insurance coverage.
At the same time, I believe Conrad notes
one major problem with medicalization: the fact that it “transforms many human
differences [and aspects of everyday life] into pathologies” (148). These include differences in aging,
learning style, sexual desire, stature, and shyness. In this respect,
medicalization narrows “the range of what is considered acceptable” and normal
and “diminishes our tolerance for and appreciation of the diversity of life” (7,
148). Additionally, over the course of time, the standards for what are
considered “abnormal” (ex. high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, etc) are
continuously being changed and lowered. Thus, together, more and more people
have been categorized as being unhealthy and “abnormal.” Since this has been
the trend in the past, it seems that it will continue to be the trend in the
future. Thus, medicalization, in a sense, seems to be a never-ending process
where only more and more people are going to be categorized as unhealthy and
“abnormal.” This warrants the question: what is/will truly be considered
normal, expected, and acceptable in life and our society? What differences
truly warrant/will warrant treatment? Eventually, all of them?
As Conrad notes, in our society,
health is a high value-asset. In an essay titled “What’s Making Us Sick Is an Epidemic of
Diagnoses” in the New York Times, H.
Gilbert Welch, Lisa Schwartz, and Steven Woloshin make us consider that many of
us are told that we are sick only because of the growing number of “medical
diagnoses” existing as a result of medicalization. However, they state that “doctors need to
remember the value of reassuring people that they are not sick,” thereby once
again valuing health itself. They
make a very interesting suggestion that “someone should start monitoring a new
health metric: the proportion of the population not requiring medical care.”
Perhaps looking at such a metric will help us re-value health as a society as
well as help us reconsider the expansion of medicalization and the concept of normalcy.
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