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British Medical Bulletin 69:197-213 (2004)
British Medical Bulletin, Vol. 69 © The British Council 2004; all rights reserved

‘Health for me’: a sociocultural analysis of healthism in the middle classes

Trisha Greenhalgh* and Simon Wessely{dagger}

* University College London and {dagger} Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, UK

Correspondence to: Professor Trisha Greenhalgh, Professor of Primary Health Care, University College London, Room 204, Holborn Union Building, Highgate Hill, London N19 5LW, UK

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.


   What is healthism?
 
In this paper, we address what many health professionals see as a common, increasingly uncontainable and personally stressful problem: the beliefs, behaviour and expectations of the articulate, health-aware and information-rich middle-classes. We describe some fictitious case scenarios, which reflect real-life problems that we have encountered in clinical situations as a general practitioner (Greenhalgh) and psychiatrist (Wessely). The scenarios were constructed using a technique called ‘critical fiction’, in which themes from real cases are systematically extracted and fictionalized into new stories1. They are deliberately somewhat stereotypical, and we acknowledge that the perceptions and choices of any individual will not be determined solely (or even predominantly) by the various socio-cultural phenomena explored in this chapter. Nevertheless, these cases serve to illustrate our analysis of the origins and nature of the ‘health for me’ phenomenon.

Healthism is related to, but should not be equated with, consumerism, which is a broader term with . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Case 1: the Taylor-Browns’ mercury fillings

Case 2: River’s immunizations

Case 3: Madeleine’s body aches


   The origins of healthism: "you’ve never had it so good"
 

   The epidemiology of healthism: an exclusively middle-class affliction?
 

   The agent of healthism: the reflexive, rational, actualizing self
 

   Healthism and power
 

   The axis of healthism: ‘nice’ versus ‘nasty’
 

   Conclusion
 

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