Medicalization Summary

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Medicalization is when human conditions that were not previously known as illnesses are defined and treated as a medical problem. These problems are new and call for treatment by a medical doctor or another form of medical involvement such as therapy, medication, or surgery. Peter Conrad l writes a summary of his ideas on the topic and a wide exploration of current trends and developments is society. There are three engines to medicalization and they are the consumers, managed care, and technology. The consumers are a factor of medicalization because health care is becoming a big deal and everyone is to want a piece of it. Individuals are constantly use medical terms to influence their daily life while watching TV and connecting to the internet …show more content…

They are treated with synthetic human growth hormone, which are very expensive. The parents that can afford this treatment are only giving their child 2 inch of height and may be causing harm psychology in the sense of them not feeling good enough, telling them how important height is and saying that shortness is unattractive. Heightization is the preference for height in society, taller people are more favored on job hiring and pay, sport, also in relationship women like taller guys. Human growth hormone (hgH) was developed in 1985 and was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for growth deficiency. Since then there has been several “off label” (non-FDA-approved) uses (Peter Conrad). By off labeling they can use the drug in place they think it will also help improve condition, which can be called in enhancements. The drug hgH can be used to treat antiaging because people always want to look young and still have that fountain of youth, and improve athletic performance but that can cause the argument of risk, unfairness, and artificial verse natural, all these contain many social factors. Conrad said by using hgH “we can see how enhancement can expand the purview of medicalization in society” because it can improve the individual and help treat with other human

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