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The ideology behind today's ideas about Health, and how the media works it.

  
 
All Acting Regiment
17:00 / 26.11.07
So, over on K-Punk, in an article interesting in its own right, one can read:

Late capitalism certainly articulates many of its injunctions via an appeal to (a certain version of) health.

The banning of smoking in public places, the relentless monstering of working class diet on programmes like ‘You Are What You Eat’, do appear to indicate that we are already in the presence of a paternalism without the Father. It is not that smoking is ‘wrong’, it is that it will lead to our failing to lead long and enjoyable lives.

But there are limits to this emphasis on good health: mental health and intellectual development barely feature at all, for instance. (When will there be a Channel 4 programme called ‘You Are What You Read?’)

What we see instead is a reductive, hedonic model of health which is all about ‘feeling good’. To tell people how to lose weight, or how to better decorate their neo-liberal burrow, is acceptable; but to call for any kind of cultural improvement is to be oppressive and elitist.

The alleged elitism and oppression cannot consist in the notion that a third party might know someone’s interest better than they know it themselves, since, presumably smokers, or those hectored by coprophiliac crank Gillian McKeith are deemed either to be unaware of their interests or incapable of acting in accordance with them.

No: the problem is that only certain types of interest are deemed relevant, since they reflect values that are held to be consensual. Losing weight, decorating your house and improving your appearance belong to the 'consentimental' regime of what Adam Curtis calls the ‘empire of the self’.

I find this very interesting, not least because it is a hard critical approach to television that avoids calling anyone stupid.

I was aware of the classist nature of Jamie Oliver's school meals program (is it classist? other arguments welcome), and indeed the way that a program like Supernanny places all the blame for the 'problems' on the individual rather than looking for underlying structures and trying to change them; but it had actually escaped my notice that, amongst all these cookery shows, shows about health, and so on, this mass of health-obsession, none really cares about mental health and the kind of exercise you get from reading.

Is this a valid observation - are there any examples that stand out as agreeing or disagreeing with it?
 
 
petunia
23:44 / 26.11.07
A glib and tired response to be followed by a proper one once I have slept...

Nintendo Brain Training - Have you seen the amount of adverts for this game? The way they valourise the imporvement of your mental faculties? Admittedly, the game trains the more numerical faculties than those of abstract thought, but still, it's a start.

On a similar tangent - Sudoku - The national craze. Difficult for the brain.

The BBC ran a Test the Nation programme to test the IQ of Teh People.

There's those programmes about really good teachers showing children how to really apply their minds to self discipline and learning (I remember one where a kid got sent home because he broke the rules. The headteacher took No Shit.) I'd say that self-discipline is a massively helpful tool to have.

There was also that Steven Fry documentary where he spoke of his mental problems.

I never saw the Jamie Oliver programme, but is it not possible that he actually did want to see children eating better in schools? From evidence I see every now and again in local newspapers, it seems a lot of schools have taken to heart the idea of healthy eating. While there may be some element of 'look at what the poor kids eat! ewww!', I'm pretty sure most schools have crap food.

On a holistic level - bodily health goes a long way towards mental health. I can't think for shit when I'm hungry or ill.

Seeing as we live in a largely materialist society (in the philosophical sense, rather than the 'buy lots' sense), I don't find it very surprising that 'self improvement' first takes the form of bodily/external self improvement. I suspect there is already a trend towards more healthy minds (a programme just sprung to mind that was all about people having better sex lives and dropping inhibitions. That might count, though it was only on the tv cos sex is sexy.)

But in a pragmatic sense - how can we show a mental self improvement show that people will want to watch?

'This is Tania. She's been suffering from insomnia for the past two years due to repeated memories of a childhood trauma. In today's episode, we will watch as she tells the story to a psychotherapist who tells her how to feel better about it. Will she get to sleep tonight?'
 
 
Jackie Susann
00:28 / 27.11.07
I think the position that it's classist to criticise (some homogenised, presumably white) 'working class diet' is a bit ridiculous. The diets imposed on large parts of the world's population by agribusiness are a crime against humanity. (Anyway I guess I half-agree with him here - I think its important to distinguish a radical critique of the production relations that underpin different social groups diets from smug rich prats who can afford all the organic shit they like.)

Also, did this guy ever see 'Queer Eye For The Straight Guy'?
 
 
Supersister
20:35 / 25.12.07
If there is an overriding problem with our approach to illness, it is the tendency to compartmentalise the body into organs and systems at the expense of any overview. Different doctors treat different body parts and the individual gets lost in the gaps in medical knowledge. It amazes me sometimes. We don't know what a part does, tonsils, adenoids, lymph glands, we cut them out! Chinese doctors know, but we ignore them. There is a desperate need to merge global medical disciplines but in the political climate it is ignored.

As for public health, there are too many short sighted economic profit seeking influences on the information that is put out into the domain. Campaigns are short lived, to match our modern short attention spans, but there are few real practical measures put in place. The simplest way to ensure good nutrition, for example, would be to attack the food supply chain, deal perhaps with labelling, outdated production methods, the logistics of supply. But, to put it crudely, no one it seems can be arsed to even think about change! Instead we slough out the occasional media campaign and we all carry on poisoning ourselves as before.
 
 
johnny enigma
21:21 / 02.01.08
I think it's fair to say that there is a distinct lack of emhaphasis on mental health.However, the problem is that mental health is a far more complex issue than phyiscal health.

For instance, cannabis pyschosis is generally accepted as a real phenomenon, but the approach to dealing with the problem never extends further than telling young people not to smoke cannabis, the reasons why so many young people feel the need to excessively smoke cannabis are never examined - the point that many sufferers might have been trying to self medicate is rarely discussed.

A sort of neo marxist critique maybe in order. It seems that questioing why and how so many people become mentally ill could well lead to a point of view that I happen to hold - that modern capitalist society just doesn't make people that happy or satisfied. By all means criticse people's diets and habits so we can have a stronger healthier work force but don't let them consider the idea that working nine to five in order to buy consumer trinkets might be what's making them profoundly depressed.
 
 
Evil Scientist
14:16 / 03.01.08
We don't know what a part does, tonsils, adenoids, lymph glands, we cut them out! Chinese doctors know, but we ignore them.

Umm, we do know what these do. Removal of them willy-nilly certainly used to be quite common. Not so much these days as far as I am aware. It's inaccurate to paint a picture where ignorant Westerners unthinkingly saw open patients to destroy what they don't understand. Western medicine, for all its faults, saves lives. Perhaps it could be improved by embracing alternative views of physiology and medicine, but I don't think it's value should be down-played.

Alternative health strategies are as open to abuse by media idiots as the mainstream ones. More so in my opinion as they have a lot less supporting data.

But, to put it crudely, no one it seems can be arsed to even think about change! Instead we slough out the occasional media campaign and we all carry on poisoning ourselves as before.

I don't think that's true though. Although it may well be a current fad of well-fed, middle-class types there does seem to be a growing trend towards healthy (or at least healthier) eating. The companies that supply the food are, to some extent at least, under pressure to inform us better about what goes into our food.
 
 
Saturn's nod
14:58 / 03.01.08
I think Jackie Susann's point about the stake agribusiness has in unhealthy diets links into a larger one about collective factors in public health.

My perception is that we are bombarded with the message that we have to 'take responsibility for our own/our family's health'. It's presented as if it was a completely individualised quest.

But many of the factors which affect public health are out of the hands of individuals. A few examples spring to mind: chemicals which are known to have toxic and teratogenic effects, and where the environmental fate is unknown or known to be harmful, continue to be manufactured and released into the environment we all share, and no part of the cost is pinned back on those responsible. Plastics which will no biodegrade continue to be produced whilst the environmental and health costs of the first century of production are just beginning to show. The mineral content of our food has been eroded by half a century of exploitation - supplementation of N/P/K for growth of plants whilst the Fe/S/Ca/Mg/Mn/Cu etc content is ignored means the trace minerals are only a fraction of what they were in the 1940s. Fresh water is a global scarcity and likely to become more so, and hard-to-remove substances like fluoride which are known to have toxic effects at higher doses are tolerated in drinking water. How much of the national budget for health even in a globally wealthy country like the UK goes towards sticking-plasters over the effects of poverty and neglect?

I think the burdens of these abuses of our collective resources are disproportionately sumped on global and local poor, e.g. by locations of toxic waste dumps and the much greater cost of nutrient-dense wholefoods and very clean water, even while the poor also have least environmental security and exposure to many other threats. Localising the 'pursuit of health' to something which is in the control of individuals could be a hideous victim-blaming exercise.

I want solutions to global problems which move us collectively towards the good of all. It seems as if humans can work towards intelligence in tiny groups but we are almost entirely incapable of rational collective intelligent action! Maybe we need much more legislation to restrain powerful and abusive tendencies in global businesses and other collective human enterprises, but who will draft, propose, vote for such legislation in sufficient numbers? My assumption that legislation might improve the situation is based on a model I have of much greater worker's employment rights and workplace health and safety in Europe compared to the U.S. where I think worker's rights are legally protected to a much lesser degree? I think the average life expectancy shows a difference - though of course this can also be related to the availability of healthcare to all, as is the case in most European countries.
 
  
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