Section B Health Theorists

Question 1

Kirk (2002)

Answer 1

The body is constructed in ways that conform to cultural norms, which in some societies see some body shapes and sizes as preferable to others. Body shapes act as symbols, signifying particular social values.

Question 2

Shilling (2012)

Answer 2

Argues that we engage in what he calls ‘body projects’, working on our bodies to achieve self expression and self identity, forming bodies within their social context.
Shilling argues that body projects are influenced by globalisation, as more people travel abroad for cosmetic surgery.

Question 3

Featherstone (1991)

Answer 3

From a Postmodernist perspective, argues that the human body has become a central focus of cultural activity in a consumer-led society, and we exercise self-surveillance by checking ourselves for imperfections, blemishes and abnormalities.

Question 4

Turner (1996)

Answer 4

We are now living in a ‘somatic society’, in which people seek to express themselves through and take control of all aspects of their bodies.

Question 5

Lorber and Martin (2011)

Answer 5

Emphasises that the members of a society determine the acceptable shapes of human bodies

Question 6

Hesse-Biber (1997)

Answer 6

In western societies, the social construction of female bodies now is typically referred to as the ‘cult of thinness’.

Question 7

Chernin (1983)

Answer 7

Referred to the social construction of female bodies as a ‘tyranny of slenderness’.

Question 8

Gill et al (2005)

Answer 8

In a study of body projects and masculinity, found many men saw skin care products like moisturiser and hand cream in terms of the health of their skin (rather than appearance), and male gym users saw working out as concerned with health rather their appearance.

Question 9

Giddens and Sutton (2013)

Answer 9

Point to the way that the growth of body related mental illnesses, such as eating disorders, are extreme ways to lose weight to meet Western cultural standards of beauty and to maintain control over ones body.

Question 10

Dubos and Pines (1980)

Answer 10

Point out the physical demands of work mean that what counts as good health and disease may have different meanings to different occupations.

Question 11

Shakespeare (1998)

Answer 11

Adopts a social model of disability, suggests that disability should be seen as a social construction, a problem created by the attitudes of society and not the state of our bodies, to suit those who don’t meet with societies idea ‘normal’.

Question 12

Foucault (2003)

Answer 12

Used the term ‘medical gaze’ to describe the way the biomedical model meant that patient diagnosis changed from being based on patients’ accounts to examination of their bodies. Doctors search for the scientific truth about disease was separated from the individuals mind.

Question 13

Marmot (2010)

Answer 13

Suggested health and well being were shaped by a wide range of factors in daily life, including material circumstances such as work environments, poor quality food, poverty or pollution and social position.

Question 14

Dubos and Pines (1980)

Answer 14

Explored the interplay of environmental, physical, mental and spiritual dimensions of health, and stressed that individuals were not just biological units but thinking individuals living in a social context.

Question 15

McKeown (1976)

Answer 15

Shown that doctors are not solely responsible for improving life expectancy and health. Improvements in social conditions led by government intervention and support are far more important than the application of scientific medicine.

Question 16

Illich (1976)

Answer 16

Argues that medical intervention can actually have more harmful effects than the condition they are meant to be curing. Illich calls this iatrogenesis.

Question 17

Navarro (1976)

Answer 17

Doctors are agents of social control, gate keepers who control access to the sick file and therefore keep the workforce at work in the interests of capitalists.

Question 18

Oakley (1984), Hart (1985), Graham (1993)

Answer 18

Are very critical of the biomedical approach to health and the patriarchal nature of the medical profession, what has been called ‘malestream’ science and medicine.

Question 19

Oakley (1992)

Answer 19

Suggests childbirth has quite literally been taken out of women’s control and that maternity services are more to do with control over women rather than caring for them.

Question 20

Jebali (1993)

Answer 20

The biomedical approach to post-natal depression is based on the patriarchal assumption that childbirth, child rearing and the motherhood role are natural processes which should be seen as satisfying and enjoyable for women.

Question 21

Foucault (1991)

Answer 21

Surveillance, this means everyone is watching and judging how mothers parent their children, and mothers are watching and judging their own parenting, comparing themselves with and judging, how other mothers raise their children.

Question 22

Douglas and Michaels (2004)

Answer 22

Motherhood has become a ‘psychological police state’, with mothers policing themselves, policing and being policed by other mothers in order to make assess whether women are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ mothers

Question 23

Witz (1992)

Answer 23

Shows how in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there was a long struggle by men to exclude and marginalise women in the medical professions.

Question 24

Wilkinson (1996, 2005)

Answer 24

He suggests that social cohesion is a significant factor in health deprivation. He suggests that large income differences between social groups divide people from one another, leading to a lack of social cohesion and less healthy.

Question 25

Wilkinson and Pickett (2010)

Answer 25

Health of all members of society tend to be worse in an unequal society. They suggest reducing social inequality is the best way to improve everyone’s health and reduce overall health inequalities.

Question 26

Marmot (2004)

Answer 26

Argues that there is a social gradient in society, a status hierarchy, that runs like a ladder. Everyone has a position in it, and wherever we are in the social hierarchy, that spot affects our quality of life.

Question 27

Payne (2006)

Answer 27

Shows the differences between men and women in their health, across the world. Men are much more likely than women to die from heart disease and cancer. At all ages women’s death rates are much lower than men’s.

Question 28

Nettleton (2006)

Answer 28

The reason as to why women go to the doctor 50% more often over the age of 16 is due to health reasons such as contraception, pregnancy or fertility, than illness.

Question 29

Arber and Thomas (2005)

Answer 29

The different health experiences of men and women primarily reflect gender roles. Men’s demonstration of masculinity and women’s of femininity, expose men and women to particular health conditions relating to particular health conditions.

Question 30

Mackenzie et al (2006)

Answer 30

Found men are not socialised to show their emotions as much as women, so are less open in talking and seeking help.

Question 31

Scambler (2008)

Answer 31

Emphasises greater risk taking behaviour by men. Men generally live more hazardous lives than women through environments seen as dangerous.

Question 32

Busfield (1996)

Answer 32

Women are overrepresented in data on mental illness, with some mental disorders of various kinds seen as female maladies, such as anxiety.

Question 33

Nazroo (1997)

Answer 33

Member of an ethnic minority background experience poor housing and poverty, showing that deprivation explains a large amount of the ill health experienced by social groups.

Question 34

Dave Smith et al (2002)

Answer 34

Social disadvantage, such as poverty, does not fully explain the differences in health between ethnic groups, suggesting other explanations such as language and cultural factors, the effects of racism and cultural insensitivity.

Question 35

Latif (2010)

Answer 35

Family values and the idea of families supporting one another may create some reluctance to accept care from someone from outside of their own community.

Question 36

Navarro (1976)

Answer 36

Healthcare benefits capitalists by keeping the working class fit enough to work and is an instrument of social control to stop people from malingering and feigning sickness to avoid work. The working class get just enough healthcare to avoid social protest by giving the impression of fairness.

Question 37

Alford (1975)

Answer 37

Suggested there were different and competing interests among those who work within the healthcare system, which often override the interests of those who used it.

Question 38

Gulliford et al (2014)

Answer 38

Men are 30 per cent less likely than women to visit their GP. This pattern is repeated in many other areas of the health service eg dental checkups.

Question 39

Foot and Harrison (2011)

Answer 39

Older people faced age bias in access to cancer treatment and were under treated. They were more likely to die of cancer than younger patients as they received less investigation and late diagnosis.

Question 40

Laing (2010, 1970)

Answer 40

One of the first psychiatrists to challenge the biomedical approach to mental illness. Developed the social realist view of mental illness and pointed to structuralist explanations, suggesting that the cause of mental illness are located in the structure of society and the relationship between patients and others.

Question 41

Foucault (2001)

Answer 41

Argues that what is defined as mental illness and how it is treated depends on how a particular society interprets some kind of deviant, abnormal behaviour.

Question 42

Moncrieff (2010)

Answer 42

Unlike medical diseases, which are based on biological knowledge, most mental illnesses are not made in the basis of scientific methods, instead someone is said to be mentally ill when their behaviour is outside the accepted norms. Psychiatric diagnosis appears a form of social control, a political decide which dresses up judgements of behaviour as medical facts.

Question 43

Appignanesi (2011)

Answer 43

Over the last forty years, the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association, has invented even more disorders, thereby reducing the range of what can be regarded as normal, while drug companies make huge profits from treating these alleged disorders.

Question 44

szasz (1972)

Answer 44

Mental illness is not an illness but a label used by powerful people to control those who are seen as socially disruptive or who challenge existing society of the dominant ideas. Mental illness cannot be treated or cured as the problem lies with the attitudes of other people.

Question 45

Goffman (1991)

Answer 45

Once a person is labelled as mentally ill and chooses or forced to enter a psychiatric hospital, then the insanity role is confirmed and the career of a psychiatric patient begins, by which people are not cured but learn to ‘act mad’ according to the label.

Question 46

Swayne (2009)

Answer 46

There is some shaky evidence for much conventional medicine as well as complimentary alternative medicine, using the biomedical approach it may not always be appropriate in patient care. Something can be learned by medical practitioners from CAM’s unorthodox approaches.

Question 47

Goldacre (2012)

Answer 47

Pharmaceutical companies encourage the growing medicalisation of society through ‘widening the boundaries of diagnosis’, making more conditions appear to be in need of medical treatment, and then profit from this.

Question 48

Skountridaki (2014)

Answer 48

The internationalisation of private healthcare provision and medical tourism has made some doctors into business people, competing to sell services , driven by self interested search for profit.

Question 49

Black Report (1980)

Answer 49

Found a clear distinction between class and mortality rates, yet ignored patterns of health amongst social groups.

Question 50

The Marmot Review (2010)

Answer 50

Found material circumstances including work, food, pollution, social position, education, occupation gender and ethnicity all contribute towards poor health. Thus indicating illness and disease to not be random.

Question 51

Germ theory (Louis Pasteur)

Answer 51

Supports the idea that illness is caused by biological agents, focusing in pathogens, and physiological abnormalities rather than social influences. It suggests that health can be defined objectively, as the absence of disease.

Question 52

The biopsychological model (Engel 1977)

Answer 52

Psychological and social factors must also be considered. Treatment should not only focus on medical intervention, but also address mental health, lifestyle and social conditions. It has influenced patient centred care, emotional support and social interventions.