Healthism: Difference between revisions
Mauroturrini (talk | contribs) I revised the introductory section, in particular I added the academic uses of this term |
Mauroturrini (talk | contribs) →Healthism and medicalization: I tried to revise this paragraph after the issues about copyright policy that the previous version raised |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
'''Healthism''', sometimes called '''public-healthism''', is a [[neologism]] to describe those practices, behaviors and techniques aimed at preserving health and optimizing wellbeing. This notion was coined in the 1970s within social sciences as a critical tool of the new ideology of health and has been gained wide public currency to refer to a wide set of processes, such like healthy food behaviors, avoiding alcohol, smoking or other risky habits, [[fitness culture]] and physical activities ([[jogging]], [[yoga]]...), taking dietary supplements, using self-tracking devices for monitoring one’s health and conducts, and so forth. It is often used with a pejorative connotation to criticize the imperative of health promotion and it is common, for example, in the [[Fat acceptance movement|fat acceptance mouvement]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://healthateverysizeblog.org/2013/11/19/the-haes-files-speculations-on-healthism-privilege/|title=Speculations on Healthism & Privilege|last=Ferguson|first=Fall|date=November 19, 2013|website=Health at every size|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=January 31, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=fatheffalump.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/fat-stigma-healthism-and-eating-disorders|title=Fat Stigma, healthism and eating disorders|last=Fat Heffalump|first=|date=May 23, 2013|website=Fat Heffalump: Living with Fattitude|archive-url=fatheffalump.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/fat-stigma-healthism-and-eating-disorders|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=January 31, 2018}}</ref>. Use of the word has changed and in some cases even reversed the original meaning, and certain websites promoting healthy lifestyles use the term with a positive connotation. This concept also proves to a useful conceptual tool to grasp the current developments of health culture beyond medical settings<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Turrini|first=Mauro|date=2015|title=A genealogy of “healthism”: Healthy subjectivities between individual autonomy and disciplinary control|url=https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01350627|journal=Eä|volume=7|pages=11-27|via=}}</ref>, especially in cultures of fitness and sport<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hervik|first=Stein Egil|last2=Fasting|first2=Kari|date=2014|title='It is passable, I suppose'. Adult Norwegian men's notions of their own bodies|url=|journal=International Review for the Sociology of Sport|volume=18(7)|pages=800-816|via=}}</ref>, body representations<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rysst|first=Mari|date=|title="Healthism" and looking good: Body ideals and body practices in Norway|url=|journal=Scandinavian Journal of Public Health|volume=38(5S)|pages=71-80|via=}}</ref>, and beyond doctor/patient relationship<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Cheek|first=Julianne|date=2008|title=Healthism: a new conservatism?|url=|journal=Qualitative health research|volume=18(7)|pages=974-982|via=}}</ref>. |
'''Healthism''', sometimes called '''public-healthism''', is a [[neologism]] to describe those practices, behaviors and techniques aimed at preserving health and optimizing wellbeing. This notion was coined in the 1970s within social sciences as a critical tool of the new ideology of health and has been gained wide public currency to refer to a wide set of processes, such like healthy food behaviors, avoiding alcohol, smoking or other risky habits, [[fitness culture]] and physical activities ([[jogging]], [[yoga]]...), taking dietary supplements, using self-tracking devices for monitoring one’s health and conducts, and so forth. It is often used with a pejorative connotation to criticize the imperative of health promotion and it is common, for example, in the [[Fat acceptance movement|fat acceptance mouvement]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://healthateverysizeblog.org/2013/11/19/the-haes-files-speculations-on-healthism-privilege/|title=Speculations on Healthism & Privilege|last=Ferguson|first=Fall|date=November 19, 2013|website=Health at every size|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=January 31, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=fatheffalump.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/fat-stigma-healthism-and-eating-disorders|title=Fat Stigma, healthism and eating disorders|last=Fat Heffalump|first=|date=May 23, 2013|website=Fat Heffalump: Living with Fattitude|archive-url=fatheffalump.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/fat-stigma-healthism-and-eating-disorders|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=January 31, 2018}}</ref>. Use of the word has changed and in some cases even reversed the original meaning, and certain websites promoting healthy lifestyles use the term with a positive connotation. This concept also proves to a useful conceptual tool to grasp the current developments of health culture beyond medical settings<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Turrini|first=Mauro|date=2015|title=A genealogy of “healthism”: Healthy subjectivities between individual autonomy and disciplinary control|url=https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01350627|journal=Eä|volume=7|pages=11-27|via=}}</ref>, especially in cultures of fitness and sport<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hervik|first=Stein Egil|last2=Fasting|first2=Kari|date=2014|title='It is passable, I suppose'. Adult Norwegian men's notions of their own bodies|url=|journal=International Review for the Sociology of Sport|volume=18(7)|pages=800-816|via=}}</ref>, body representations<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rysst|first=Mari|date=|title="Healthism" and looking good: Body ideals and body practices in Norway|url=|journal=Scandinavian Journal of Public Health|volume=38(5S)|pages=71-80|via=}}</ref>, and beyond doctor/patient relationship<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Cheek|first=Julianne|date=2008|title=Healthism: a new conservatism?|url=|journal=Qualitative health research|volume=18(7)|pages=974-982|via=}}</ref>. |
||
== Healthism and medicalization == |
== Healthism and medicalization == |
||
| Line 6: | Line 6: | ||
Three years later, Robert Crawford elaborates this concept and defines it as “the preoccupation of health as a primary – often ''the'' primary - focus for the definition and the achievement of well-being, a goals which is to be attained through the modifications of life styles, with or without therapeutic help”<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Crawford|first=Robert|date=1980|title=Healthism and the Medicalization of Everyday Life|url=|journal=International Journal of Health Services|volume=7(4)|page=|pages=365-388|lay-source=italics in original|via=}}</ref>. Like Zola, Crawford uses healthism as a critical tool to condemn the ideological aspects of the movement of medical propagation. Yet, differently from him, his polemical target are not the cutting-edge technoscientific innovations of that period, but the new blossoming health cultures of self-help and holistic medicines. These mouvements intended to replace the medical objectification of the patient with a more democratic healthcare model. According to Crawford, these movements paradoxically did not challenge the power of medical profession, but rather disseminated the medical perception ad ideology (the "clinical gaze”, to put it in [[Michel Foucault|Foucault]]’s terms<ref>{{Cite book|title=The birth of the Clinics: An Archaeology of Medical Perception|last=Foucault|first=Michel|publisher=Tavistock|year=1973|isbn=|location=London|pages=}}</ref>) to laypeople. |
Three years later, Robert Crawford elaborates this concept and defines it as “the preoccupation of health as a primary – often ''the'' primary - focus for the definition and the achievement of well-being, a goals which is to be attained through the modifications of life styles, with or without therapeutic help”<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Crawford|first=Robert|date=1980|title=Healthism and the Medicalization of Everyday Life|url=|journal=International Journal of Health Services|volume=7(4)|page=|pages=365-388|lay-source=italics in original|via=}}</ref>. Like Zola, Crawford uses healthism as a critical tool to condemn the ideological aspects of the movement of medical propagation. Yet, differently from him, his polemical target are not the cutting-edge technoscientific innovations of that period, but the new blossoming health cultures of self-help and holistic medicines. These mouvements intended to replace the medical objectification of the patient with a more democratic healthcare model. According to Crawford, these movements paradoxically did not challenge the power of medical profession, but rather disseminated the medical perception ad ideology (the "clinical gaze”, to put it in [[Michel Foucault|Foucault]]’s terms<ref>{{Cite book|title=The birth of the Clinics: An Archaeology of Medical Perception|last=Foucault|first=Michel|publisher=Tavistock|year=1973|isbn=|location=London|pages=}}</ref>) to laypeople. |
||
Crawford conceives healthism as an autonomous concept which is not associated with the expansion of the jurisdiction of medical professions and institutions into new domains, as in the medicalization, but rather with "the dissemination of medical perception and ideology"<ref name=":0" /> among lay people (either patients or healthy ones) who, albeit without any medical competence, are willing to take an active role in the healthcare process, often against the medical advice. Crawford understands the responsabilisation for one's own health as a new form of "moralism" based on imperative of being healthy. In brief, "healthism grasps the expansion of medicine ''beyond'' and, in some cases, ''against'' medical professions and institutions. A sort of ''medicalization without doctors'', healthism may be defined as the analysis of a set of attitudes, behaviours, and emotions that result from the elevation of health to a pan-value and committed to a more active engagement of patient in the process of healthcare. What started as companion notion to medicalization, became very quickly an independent and, in some cases, alternative category"<ref name=":1" />. |
|||
== Healthy lifestyles and subjectivities == |
== Healthy lifestyles and subjectivities == |
||
Revision as of 14:22, 7 February 2018
Healthism, sometimes called public-healthism, is a neologism to describe those practices, behaviors and techniques aimed at preserving health and optimizing wellbeing. This notion was coined in the 1970s within social sciences as a critical tool of the new ideology of health and has been gained wide public currency to refer to a wide set of processes, such like healthy food behaviors, avoiding alcohol, smoking or other risky habits, fitness culture and physical activities (jogging, yoga...), taking dietary supplements, using self-tracking devices for monitoring one’s health and conducts, and so forth. It is often used with a pejorative connotation to criticize the imperative of health promotion and it is common, for example, in the fat acceptance mouvement[1][2]. Use of the word has changed and in some cases even reversed the original meaning, and certain websites promoting healthy lifestyles use the term with a positive connotation. This concept also proves to a useful conceptual tool to grasp the current developments of health culture beyond medical settings[3], especially in cultures of fitness and sport[4], body representations[5], and beyond doctor/patient relationship[6].
Healthism and medicalization
The concept of healthism is very close to that of medicalization. Not by chance, it was most likely first used by Irving Kenneth Zola, an activist and sociologist of medicine known for his work on medicalization and disability rights. In a chapter published in 1977, Zola uses this concept to refer to the ideological component of medicalization, in particular to the alarming cultural implications of the innovations of those days[7]. According to him, the increasing capacity of medical science to redefine the borders between life and death would trigger a depoliticization of deviance and struggle, and the emergence of new forms of stigmatisation.
Three years later, Robert Crawford elaborates this concept and defines it as “the preoccupation of health as a primary – often the primary - focus for the definition and the achievement of well-being, a goals which is to be attained through the modifications of life styles, with or without therapeutic help”[8]. Like Zola, Crawford uses healthism as a critical tool to condemn the ideological aspects of the movement of medical propagation. Yet, differently from him, his polemical target are not the cutting-edge technoscientific innovations of that period, but the new blossoming health cultures of self-help and holistic medicines. These mouvements intended to replace the medical objectification of the patient with a more democratic healthcare model. According to Crawford, these movements paradoxically did not challenge the power of medical profession, but rather disseminated the medical perception ad ideology (the "clinical gaze”, to put it in Foucault’s terms[9]) to laypeople.
Crawford conceives healthism as an autonomous concept which is not associated with the expansion of the jurisdiction of medical professions and institutions into new domains, as in the medicalization, but rather with "the dissemination of medical perception and ideology"[8] among lay people (either patients or healthy ones) who, albeit without any medical competence, are willing to take an active role in the healthcare process, often against the medical advice. Crawford understands the responsabilisation for one's own health as a new form of "moralism" based on imperative of being healthy. In brief, "healthism grasps the expansion of medicine beyond and, in some cases, against medical professions and institutions. A sort of medicalization without doctors, healthism may be defined as the analysis of a set of attitudes, behaviours, and emotions that result from the elevation of health to a pan-value and committed to a more active engagement of patient in the process of healthcare. What started as companion notion to medicalization, became very quickly an independent and, in some cases, alternative category"[3].
Healthy lifestyles and subjectivities
Nowadays, lifestyles are understood as a crucial feature of contemporary societies and a means of self-expression of individuals connected to specific people’s behaviours, consumption patterns, clothing styles, body practices and so forth[10].
In The Death of Human Medicine and the Rise of Coercive Healthism[11], Peter Skrabanek claims that "healthism" either leads to, or is a symptom of, incipient totalitarianism. Skrabanek claims that healthism justifies racism, segregation, and eugenic control; for the healthist, what is "healthy" is moral, patriotic, and pure; while what is "unhealthy" is foreign, polluted, and impure. The doctrine of "lifestylism" suggests that state actions to prescribe what is healthy or forbid what is unhealthy are limitless in scope, and offer no grounds for privacy.
The tension between challenge and approval, expressiveness and homologation pervades many current processes at the intersection of healthy lifestyles, representations and practices of the body[12], and production and use of data for self-tracking, self-monitoring or self-diagnosis.
See also
References
- ^ Ferguson, Fall (November 19, 2013). "Speculations on Healthism & Privilege". Health at every size. Retrieved January 31, 2018.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|dead-url=(help) - ^ Fat Heffalump (May 23, 2013). [fatheffalump.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/fat-stigma-healthism-and-eating-disorders "Fat Stigma, healthism and eating disorders"]. Fat Heffalump: Living with Fattitude. Retrieved January 31, 2018.
{{cite web}}: Check|archive-url=value (help); Check|url=value (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|dead-url=(help) - ^ a b Turrini, Mauro (2015). "A genealogy of "healthism": Healthy subjectivities between individual autonomy and disciplinary control". Eä. 7: 11–27.
- ^ Hervik, Stein Egil; Fasting, Kari (2014). "'It is passable, I suppose'. Adult Norwegian men's notions of their own bodies". International Review for the Sociology of Sport. 18(7): 800–816.
- ^ Rysst, Mari. ""Healthism" and looking good: Body ideals and body practices in Norway". Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. 38(5S): 71–80.
- ^ Cheek, Julianne (2008). "Healthism: a new conservatism?". Qualitative health research. 18(7): 974–982.
- ^ Zola, I.K. (1977). Healthism and Disabling Medicalization. In Illich, I., Zola, I.K., McKnight, J., Caplan, J. & Shaiken, H. (eds.), Disabling Professions (pp. 41–67). London-NY: Marion Boyars.
- ^ a b Crawford, Robert (1980). "Healthism and the Medicalization of Everyday Life". International Journal of Health Services. 7(4): 365–388.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|lay-source=ignored (help) - ^ Foucault, Michel (1973). The birth of the Clinics: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. London: Tavistock.
- ^ Featherstone, Mike (1987). "Lifestyle and Consumer Culture". Theory, Culture and Society. 4(1): 55–70.
- ^ Skrabranek, Petr (1994). The Death of Human Medicine and the Rise of Coercive Healthism. Suffolk (UK): Social Affairs Unit.
- ^ Rysst, Mari (2010). "Healthism and looking good: Body ideals and body practices in Norway". Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. 38(5S): 71–80.