discussion reply 4
Popular Culture and Bodies
Cultural Conceptions of the Body: Foucault and Biomedical frameworks
Foucault’s Birth of the Clinic (1975): By the 19th century, Western medical doctors had become focused on the body and “touching” disease (e.g., autopsies), creating new Western cultural models of illness and health establishing a healthy body “norm,” with deviations from that norm established as illness/disease.
A Western biomedical conception of the body focuses less on patient discussions/communication and social experiences, and more on individual bodies as drivers of illness.
Obesity in the United States and other countries
Overnutrition: Overcoming biology and culture
Cause of death: Inequality
Poverty and Obesity: It’s complicated
Media and body image: I Can’t get no Satisfaction
Regulating Femininity
Healthcare in the United States
1. The cost of medical care in the U.S. is approximately 18% of our GDP ($3.3 trillion), making our health care system our third largest industry (National Health Expenditure Data 2018).
2. The U.S. is the only first world nation that does not offer its citizens universal health care
3. 44 million Americans do not have health insurance, and another 38 million have inadequate insurance, totaling nearly 1/3 of all Americans (pbs.org)
4. Nearly 60% of all bankruptcy cases in the U.S. are due to medical costs (CNBC 2013)
Big Pharma
Consumer spending on prescription drugs has increased in the U.S. from $40 billion in 1990 to a projected $360 billion in 2018 (Statista 2018)
In 1997, the FDA approved “direct-to-consumer” advertising, which had previously been banned (and remains banned in most countries)