As we discussed in class medicalization is the process, by which the normal human condition increasingly become defined as pathological. A key component in medicalization is what some consider to be disease mongering, which refers to the process by which healthy people are persuaded that they are ill.
I'm sorry this video is not working properly. I will post a link to the video on youtoube. Its just over 4 minutes long.
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I agree that there is a very stong push to make every little thing medicalized, but at the same time many things that were looked at as not a medical problem have improved peoples live. Take alcoholism or addiction once seen as a person's inability to control themselves, has now become a disease one that is curable. Without medical interventions a person with severe alcoholism trying to cure themselves could possible die. Many neonatal children would not be living today if it were not for medicalization of birth. Sure it may have started to better fill the pockets of doctors, but I bet you would be hard pressed to find the parents of that neonate upset at that fact.
As more technologies are created and more research is done, the more medicalized the world becomes. Everyone wants that cure all pill that solves every little problem. As in one of the chapters we had to read, the author writes how pharmaceutical companies advertise anxiety and depression medications as a way to relieve shyness and worrying. Basic human emotions are now being treated with medicine. We have medicalized aging and the way we look. There are surgeries to change the way we look and Botox to get rid of our wrinkles. I’m not saying medicalization is a bad thing because I believe it has helped in many ways like treating alcoholism and treating childbirth as a medical condition that should be supervised. I think is has probably saved many lives but I think there are some things that should remain out of the medical field.
This video is a perfect example of medicalization. The one guys says how he thought he was just lazy but it turns out he was just sick... I would have to disagree, I think he was probably lazy. I think it would be interesting to see if a placebo effect is present with the drug and I think that there most likely is a huge placebo effect. It shows how our culture has been trained to look for a pill to fix all there problems. This video also points out his connections to the drug companies which shows that the accuracy of his clinical trials and research is most likely bias. I hope that people are smart enough to realize that diseases like this are simply made up in order for a drug company to make more money.
It's weird how the one guy had motivation to get up and go to the beach, however once he got there, his motivation was suddenly gone! I'm not sure where the line can be drawn for medicalization- if one can be drawn at all. I agree with Ben that the medicalization of birth and even alcoholism have brought benefits to society, however this new "disease-" motivation disorder I feel has crossed the line. People just want an excuse for their laziness, and Dr.s just want the fame that come with a new (yet ridiculous) diagnosis, and perhaps even the money (especially from the pharmaceutical company ties). However, if people want a fix for their laziness, and this drug can do so, why not let them take it? It's all a mental game, and if a new drug gets them motivated and off the couch to mow the lawn, then so be it.
My first thought about this video was that it was a joke. I thought the most interesting part was the doctor at the end who stated how worrying it is that it is so easy to create a new disease. Although I do believe that it is necessary to look for medical interventions for serious problems such as alcoholism, this is getting a bit ridiculous. This new "disease" seems to be just a term for chronic laziness, which i find to be a bad habit, for example if I were to sit on the couch all day and not do homework, and repeat that for several days, i might get used to doing nothing. This seems to be a troubling trend that might eventually lead to taking pills for every undesirable human emotion.
Well now people have an excuse to be lazy and can defend their laziness. It really is too bad that new phantom diseases like this are popping up and drug companies are going to reap the profits because of it. All in all, medicine has its need and purpose but this is just absurd.
I think that video was hilarious. I immediately knew it was a joke. I don't understand how anyone would ever think laziness is a disease. "So unmovtivated they stop breathing and die"? I did some follow up reading and found that this was an April Fool's Day Joke that the professor sent out to see how long it would take for pharm. companies to respond and whether or not people would believe it and claim it exists. I think that anyone who would actually believe that should take a second and analyze their medicine use.
I honestly thought that this was a joke. I read the other comments from the class and it really is (which makes me feel a bit better about our society as a whole) but if it wasn't a joke it just goes to show how everything is more medicalized. I think that any new issue that comes about then it is suddenly a new disease and we create pills for it. I don't think medicalization is necessarily a bad thing because it has helped our society in many ways over the years, but I do think that we can take things too far and they have to be less medicalized.
There are medications for everything today. People take medications just to take something. In their head it makes them feel better. People today thinks a pill can fix any problem. I cant believe they actually think laziness can be fixed by a pill. Medications should be used for many illnesses or diseases but an illness like laziness is something that is in a persons mind and its something they need to fix on there own.
This video was actually, created by a man named Ray Moynihan. He is the "motivationally deficient" patient in this video, as well as the author of "Selling Sickness". Motiv is not a real disease. This video was created as a joke for lectures that Ray Moynihan was giving. Selling Sickness is a book about the methods in which pharmaceuticals create diseases turing us form the worried well to the worried sick. The book use case studies, interviews with marketers and pharmaceutical CEO's to depict they ways that pharmaceutical companies create and sell us sickness. This book can be found in the library if anyone is interested, but i think it is still signed out to me for a few weeks.
Amanda, I very glad that you clarified that this was just a joke. I know medicalization is seeping into every aspect of the human existence, but this video left me speechless. I honestly wanted to punch that guy who thought he had "Motiv" in the face. All violence and joking aside though, I wish an instance like this was more unbelievable. With the direction our society is headed in, and the prevalence of this disease mongering, I fear absolutely ridiculous diagnoses such as "Motiv" are just around the corner.
I think that this was a very clever joke, that nonetheless could easily happen. Knowing what I know now it seems as though pharmaceutical companies are constantly trying to think of things that they can medicalize for the sole purpose of making money. This video shows a seemingly unbelievable illness made up to create a wider market base for companies, although it does not seem that far fetched. Considering several other disorders like Female Sexual Dysfunction and drugs like Viagra it is easy to see how the pharmaceutical companies clog the market with cure-alls. The sad part is that people are willing to buy these drugs because the drug companies market them in such a way as to make anyone feel they need a pill to cure their perceived dysfunction.
A past professor I had said "American's are the healthiest hypochondriacs." This video just continues to play into medicalization. We have grown up believing there is a cure for everything. This video is a parody of medicalization, mocking how we have a need to find a cure for something that is otherwise normal and find a cure for it. Laziness is plagued by everyone. Who really wants to get out of bed on Monday for work or class? Who really wants to mow the lawn? No one, but it needs to be done. Pharmaceuticals are looking for new diseases to come up so they can sell more drugs and make more money. It's just a business and medicalization seems to be seeping more into our daily lives such as our emotions.
It really is incredible the power drug companies have. They have shifted public opinion on normal ever day feelings and events and turned them into diseases just to make a profit. The only reason they are able to do this is because of the biomedical lens society looks through. It seems so obvious sometimes that these are not actually medical problems yet people are willing to take medication. Pretty soon all stress will be medicalized and we will be going into job interviews like zombies so we don't stress about it.
The video was absolutely hilarious! However, the idea of a pill for unmotivated people does not seem that foreign given the state of our society. A drug is available for virtually anything: aspirin for headaches, caffeine for drowsiness, vitamins for under-nutrition etc. The problem is that people have acquired a perception of "normalcy" that does not reflect the realities of human existence. Sadness, laziness, and shyness are behaviors that are often at odds with productivity in such areas of life as work, education, and social relationships. This is part of the reason they are often discouraged and require a "cure" to return one's life to "normalcy". The truth is "normalcy" is forced on individuals to get them to conform to an unattainable ideal by buying medications or using procedures that are likely superfluous or do not treat all aspects of a disorder. This is especially true for psychological disorders, such as the fictitious one in this video, because they are difficult to comprehend without a substantial biological connection or specific diagnostic criteria.
This example of medicalization is one that is very typical. They have now changed that fact that society is lazy and are treating it as an illness. This, in turn, allows pharmaceutical companies to invest money into a very profitable treatment. Under this classification it seems to me that almost everyone could be diagnosed with some form of this disease. We all have days where it is tough to get out of bed and are unmotivated to do house work. It just seems like this is a natural part of life that we all learn from to become better people in the end. If we begin to medicate teenagers (sometimes the laziest of everyone) how will they ever better themselves without reliance on medication? How will this change our future society? Will everyone be medicated from birth in order to create a better species of humans? When we look at the future this way it seems to debunk any myths that this practice of medicalization is ethical. I also found it interesting that the doctor here said that he believed that pharmaceutical companies were in this solely to help people. I think even the company would admit that this shows great promise in profit and that money is at least a partial motivator.
I actually laughed while watching that video. The funniest part was when the man was talking about the wife who called excited about her husband who had paid an electric bill and mowed the lawn. Not only is it sad our society has become so lazy that we will use an illness as an excuse for our laziness, but that we have surrounded our lives with medicine that we will believe any drug can help us. The medicalization of every "symptom", emotion, event, and etc. in our lives has led to just excuses and learned helplessness. We can't get ourselves motivated; we need a drug. We can't make ourselves feel less anxious; we need a drug. Yes there are many positives to medicalization, and many people who have benefitted from it. However, there needs to be a point where we start realizing how ridiculous some of this all sounds.
Medicalization is becoming more prevalent than ever. Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing is easily debatable. Many things that have been medicalized have improved an individuals way of life. I agree with the argument on how neonatal infants now have a better chance at life than in the past, but do we need to give medication for shyness, or as it shows in this video lazyness. There may be people in the world that do suffer from chemical imbalances that would lead to these things. But many others are just going to take these diagnoses and run with them, giving them excuses as to why they cannot do certain things, when in all reality they probably could.
Honestly, the first thing I thought of was; is this a joke? Obviously it is, but it really is sad that in our society every small thing is becoming medicalized. Who knows maybe one day laziness will be medicalized?? It's pretty sad that in our society will will look for any symptom (even a small one) to diagnose ourselves in hope to get prescribed a drug to "cure" us. If this video wasn't a joke, instead of taking a medication to fix your laziness, maybe you should exercise and you'll feel better and motivated throughout the day...why do things like laziness have to become a diagnosis?
It' sad that our society is so medicalized and continues to become even more medicalized as time goes by. The fact that being lazy, could potentially become a medical issue where drug comapanies will come up with some drug in order to not make you lazy, its sad. The drug companies just want the money rather than trying to prevent these issues before making something that isn't a problem a medical problem. Although some things that have become medicalized in the past have proven some possitive effects for people in making them better, this is rediculous.
IS THIS SERIOUS!? This is hilarious, but scary at the same time. It's incredible to think that some people are so gullible that they would believe that the lack of motivation to get out of bed on a Monday morning is actually a disease. We are one sick nation if that is true, since I'm pretty sure we have all been there! This video is a perfect example of the power we let doctors and pharmaceutical companies have over us. It's a shame that these "scientists" wouldn't see that the "improvements" in "patients" is almost definitely a placebo effect. That just goes to show that while we are socialized to view doctors and drug companies as good-hearted and wanting to help society, they are still human and can often be very greedy even at our expense. As someone planning to go into the medical field this is discouraging. I could never see myself pushing such an absurd diagnosis on a patient. Laziness is not a sickness. It's a perfectly normal feeling that everyone has sometimes, especially when the alarm clock rings on a Monday morning.
While this is a joke, it really shows how society has become medicalized. There are medications for everything now from emotional problems to sexual dysfunction. People immediately turn to medication to deal with their problems rather than dealing with them in a more natural way. This video shows the reality that people would probably take a drug to "cure" their laziness rather than fixing the problem by getting up out of bed and being productive.
I’m glad to hear that this was a joke; while I was watching it all I could think of how ridiculous this idea was!!! This is however a perfect example of the medicalization of our society. It would be very easy for anyone to create a new “disease” and with that a pill that could cure all of their problems. If people truly wanted a pill that could cure all of their problems try a placebo. I don’t understand why people would want to medicate themselves, it seems like people are trying to come up with excuses for their problems instead of taking responsibility for them. I do believe that there are some benefits of biomedicine but there are definitely faults that we need to be aware of.
Some of you think that people turning to drugs to solve everyday problems is a sign of laziness and a lack of wanting to take responsibility for one's action. The reality is that the people who end up "victims" of disease mongering are only partially to blame. The pharmaceutical companies are targeting them directly and marketing heavily towards their products. People believe in biomedicine and this causes them to turn to these "convenient" options to help deal with daily life. I do not believe that these individuals are to blame for the way biomedicine has shaped society into thinking.
Everything today is medicalized. I feel many things should be medicalized but at the same time there is a lot that can be fixed and corrected by the individual them self. For instance hyper children should not be given Ritalin or a drug like Ritalin just to calm them down because their parents don't want to deal with them. Diseases like alcoholism is something that people don't realize they have and going to AA to get help makes these people realize they have an illness that they need to fix.
The thing that really got me was the fact that being lazy, could potentially become a medical issue. What are we doing. We are taking every little thing and making it medicalized. Its ridiculous
Even though this video is meant to be funny and make fun of the biomedicine aspect of our country it really does make some valid points. There is clearly overmedicalization in so many aspects of our world today. People try to place a label or diagnosis on every single problem they have. We are all looking for an easy way out as this video portrays because our world has made us believe that we can fix any problem we have with a pill. craaazzzzyyyyy.
This video is a perfect parody to the american culture in the way we deal with medical problems. We have become so ethnocentric in believing in biomedicine that we are medicalizing every little life "problem" to the point of destruction. Yes it has its benefits as others have mentioned but like everything in america, we over did it and has now become harmful. Due to technological advancements we have no patience so we expect everything fast and easy and we aren;t willing to wait for anything. Even if its more beneficial, we just want the quick fix. We have such a narrow view of normal that anything can be turned into a medical condition in need of treatment, which is sad.
I didn't realize that this video was supposed to be a parody going into it, but I was hoping! I think that this makes an excellent point about the nature of our society as far as medicalizing so many things. I mean we give people drugs for being sad or being nervous or being hyper. That's not to say that there aren't some people who really need some sort of help with these things, and I think it's wonderful that we can provide it to those people. Again though, I think that there are many more people who are diagnosed with these things needlessly. Sadly enough, I think that I might have actually believed this article if I had been able to find research backing it up, based on the disease mongering we see.
One of the results of increased medicalization is legitimating medical disorders. While this is important for some, such as mental illness, where people may actually need extra help and protections so that they are treated fairly, there is a risk when new diseases are created that behaviors will be tolerated that are not the result of disorder, but simply a result of individuals taking advantage of the medical system. This parody crewates a disease out of laziness. Although it is an exagerated threat, a person could say they are too lazy to work and thus, because of a medical disorder could live off of welfare. This scenario is comparable to children being allowed to behave terribly without discipline because they have ADHD. While medications narrow what we will allow and see as normal in society, medical conditions also create reasons for us to accept abnormal behavior, blaming a disease rather than a person.
this video promotes the idea that tradition medicine is slowly becoming phased out as every small issue that general people have is being classified into a disorder. I believe that the research into this is far from plausible as it seems to have “generated anxiety” among the public. This isn’t a disorder but a ploy to get people to purchase more drugs to help them succeed where they feel they are failing.
I couldnt believe this when i watched the video. It shows how medicalized our society it and how we need medications for everything. I wouldnt be surprised if laziness became a medical illness. Rather than making changes in our life we would rather spend money and get a medication for it. If this video became a commercial people would believe it. Its just sad how our society works.
Once again something as simple as a behavioral aspect of a person's life becoming medicalized and requiring treatment. The fabrication of "motivational deficiency disorder" is definitely a case of disease mongering and is just a way for pharmaceutical companies to create new drugs for new diseases in order to make a profit. The end result of the medicalization of society's emotions, behavioral patterns, and eating habits is a more hypochondriacal society. Forgive my skepticism, but when I don't feel like getting out of bed in the morning or when I don't feel like washing the dishes...I'm being lazy...not suffering from motivational deficiency disorder!
Watching this makes me ill. If we can make laziness medicalized then anything can be! It's sad because I know I am lazy and I struggle to get out of bed on Monday morning, who doesn't? This doesn't mean that I should start taking a drug so that my physician and the drug companies, "that are looking out for individuals best interest", should reap the rewards of selling more drugs. We are becoming more reliant on medicine for things that we don't need to be. If we just stop and take better care of ourselves there would be no reason to medicalize our laziness. By changing the environment in which you live you change the way you live and you shouldn't need drugs to do this.
Thank You, this video was awesome, it was so cleverly done. The name motivational deficiency disorder is hilarious and Dr. Leth Argos is also a hiliarious name (assumed playing off lethargic). That being said this is the way that alot of diseases come to be made. A trend is noted in society and a drug is created for that corner of the market, then the drug is backed by doctors to help with these "obviously" threatening illnesses that of course need medical intervention. I do in many occasions see the benefit of medical intervention especially when treating physical illnesses, but I do not believe in the use of medical intervention in the treatment of psycological illness. Which is illness I define as unprovable (no tests can be run just have to go by patients word). This video attacks directly medication for those type of illnesses and in this regard does a great job at mocking medicalization.
I think that this idea of 'motivational deficiency disorder' is ridiculous. What we used to simply call 'lazy' now has a medical disorder, complete with a prescription treatment to go with it. The spectrum of someone simply not wanting to get out of bed all the way to someone not wanting to breathe seems very extreme. I think that the end of the range that includes the 'not wanting to breathe' used to be incorporated into severe depression, borderline suicidal (isn't that what not wanting to breathe is?). I think this new disorder is simply a way for a new prescription to be marketed, and a new population of people to be targeted. Now, when they are exhausted and want to stay in bed, they have a medical excuse, the only kind of excuse generally accepted in this day and age.
This is funny, but sadly enough very true. Thanks to the pharmaceutical companies new diseases are made up everyday. Eventually they will have a treatment for laziness. I think that we should really stop medicalizing every aspect of being a human being, we are not perfect, we weren't meant to be, its normal
~Cami
This kills me. Motivational Deficiency Disorder? FINALLY, scientists found it! I can't believe it had been hiding for all this time! (sarcasm) Did you see the newspaper headline? "SCIENTISTS FIND NEW DISEASE." I'm starting to have pretty strong feelings against these invented diseases (and don't worry, they came out with the treatment, too). Not wanting to get out of bed on Monday is pretty normal. Maybe if someone WANTS to get out of bed on Monday mornings, they have hypermotivational disorder, because that sounds much more abnormal to me. In class we were surprised that 43% of women fell into the range of what was considered having female sexual dysfunction. This one is even BETTER, because it "affects" both men and women, and probably accounts for over 90% of the population. By the way, what's so wrong with lying on the beach all day? Our capitalist American culture has us brainwashed into thinking that we have to work hard to get good things in life. Doesn't everyone deserve a little downtime? Is taking a vacation considered "acute motivational deficiency disorder"?
I wonder if one day there will be a treatment for coming up with illnesses. This video almost seems like something you'd see on collegehumor.com. I wish I could believe that the company and people behind disorders like "Motivational Deficiency Disorder" weren't in this just for the money. It's difficult for me to think that they truly want to help people. This is a perfect example of medicalization and also the biomedical way of viewing the world. While it is not real, the video is certainly believable in today's society. Many problems are not even thought about to be dealt with medically, until some doctor and some pharmaceutical company think they can sell a product to "fix" it, clearly disregarding any other circumstances that may be contributing to the issue.
I think the worst part is that people would see this video and totally buy in to it. As a society, we're so used to wanting that cure for everything and ready to take whatever pill to make us "normal."
Symptoms include having trouble getting out of bed? Losing motivation such as the desire to breath? This is an outrageous example of medicalization. Taking normal life events and turning them into a medical process. If everybody suffers from a case of "the Mondays" is it really a disorder, or is it just life? This doctor has been able to form a relationship with drug company to market this drug, and this disorder. This video mentions symptoms that nearly everyone can associate with, and because of that, people will watch the video, feel that there is something wrong with them, and seek this diagnosis and prescription from their doctor. This disease was created by a doctor and drug company in an effort to sell drugs.
Symptoms include having trouble getting out of bed? Losing motivation such as the desire to breath? This is an outrageous example of medicalization. Taking normal life events and turning them into a medical process. If everybody suffers from a case of "the Mondays" is it really a disorder, or is it just life? This doctor has been able to form a relationship with drug company to market this drug, and this disorder. This video mentions symptoms that nearly everyone can associate with, and because of that, people will watch the video, feel that there is something wrong with them, and seek this diagnosis and prescription from their doctor. This disease was created by a doctor and drug company in an effort to sell drugs.
One possible danger of this is that it narrows our view of normalcy. There is nothing wrong with needing to take time to ourselves or time away from things, however this new disorder makes it seem like there is something wrong with us if we are feeling unmotivated
What a load of crap! This is medicalization at its finest. People who are lazy can now play the disease card. This is turning a normal trait such as laziness into a symptom of some disease. Now pharmaceutical companies can exploit this "disease" and make millions of dollars off of it. In the video it even says that the doctor was working with the companies to produce a drug for this motivation disorder. He probably made this up in order to make money. Like the woman in the video said, it is pretty sad how fast and easy it is for companies to make new diseases. This is why medicalization is at an increase.
Medicalization has been beneficial in some respects, but this is really showing how somethings need to be put into perspective. Creating a medical disorder out of laziness is crazy and I think that by medicalizing so many things in our society common, everyday things will now be medicalized too.
I agree that there are many terms in the medical world that are true in what they define and others that are simply just a term that someone was hoping to make money on. Now personally I have a disorder that was in time medicalized and I have found that the definition in turned helped me in life. But over time I have had to specify over and over again what type of disorder I had. The medical work seeks to define scientifically what is unexplainable with the human body and some of the things are just a joke. There now is a disorder where a person will see an ad or hear about a disease an then the person thinks that they have it. It might give them comfort, but the seller's initiative is to make a profit. I actually know quite a few adults who take a lot of medications and when they had been re evaluated they were taking meds that they never really needed.
I agree that many things have become medicalized, however, I do not necessarily think that it is a bad thing for this to have happend. Pregnancy, for example, used to be non medicalized and a mother would have her child at home whereas now women are expected to have their child at a hospital under the supervision of a doctor. At one point, women and the fetus were at great risk of illness or even death with something as minor as a breached baby. This is now a minor problem that does not cause any threat as it once did. Similiarly, I believe the medicalization of alcoholism and other addictions have been a positive change. By making these addictions into diseases, people are better able to get treatment and find help and eventually overcome their addictions.
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