IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v62y2006i10p2445-2457.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Internet marketing of bariatric surgery: Contemporary trends in the medicalization of obesity

Author

Listed:
  • Salant, Talya
  • Santry, Heena P.

Abstract

In the context of political, economic, and scientific anxiety around the 'epidemic' rise in obesity in the US, the social and historical forces engendering the medicalization of obesity have been widely discussed. However, the recent growth of bariatric--weight loss--surgery and the expanding presence of advertising for bariatric surgery on the Internet suggest the possible emergence of new loci and languages of medicalization. We sought to identify the nature and extent to which web advertising of bariatric surgery contributes to the medicalization of obesity by examining the design and textual content of 100 bariatric surgery center websites. We found that websites, through strategic use of text and images, consistently describe obesity as a serious disease that requires professional ascertainment and supervision, entails substantial individual suffering, and is remedied through the transformative yet low risk effects of bariatric surgery. In the process, social normalcy and risk reduction come to replace physical criteria as the basis for determining health. Further, websites draw upon contradictory discourses of medicalization; that is, they insist upon 'external' (e.g. genetics, environment) causes of obesity to legitimize surgical intervention while implicating individual behaviors in surgical failure. From this, we suggest that the economic and professional motivations underlying website advertisements for bariatric surgery may result in confusing messages being sent to prospective patients as well as the perpetuation of gendered notions of obesity and the entrenchment of health disparities.

Suggested Citation

  • Salant, Talya & Santry, Heena P., 2006. "Internet marketing of bariatric surgery: Contemporary trends in the medicalization of obesity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(10), pages 2445-2457, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:62:y:2006:i:10:p:2445-2457
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(05)00547-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fox, N.J. & Ward, K.J. & O'Rourke, A.J., 2005. "The 'expert patient': empowerment or medical dominance? The case of weight loss, pharmaceutical drugs and the Internet," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(6), pages 1299-1309, March.
    2. Ziebland, Sue, 2004. "The importance of being expert: the quest for cancer information on the Internet," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 59(9), pages 1783-1793, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Drew, Patricia, 2011. "“But Then I Learned…”: Weight loss surgery patients negotiate surgery discourses," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(8), pages 1230-1237.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dedding, Christine & van Doorn, Roesja & Winkler, Lex & Reis, Ria, 2011. "How will e-health affect patient participation in the clinic? A review of e-health studies and the current evidence for changes in the relationship between medical professionals and patients," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 49-53, January.
    2. Stacey, Clare Louise & Henderson, Stuart & MacArthur, Kelly R. & Dohan, Daniel, 2009. "Demanding patient or demanding encounter?: A case study of a cancer clinic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(5), pages 729-737, September.
    3. Lemire, Marc & Sicotte, Claude & Paré, Guy, 2008. "Internet use and the logics of personal empowerment in health," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 130-140, October.
    4. Tian, Xiaoli & Zhang, Sai, 2022. "Expert or experiential knowledge? How knowledge informs situated action in childcare practices," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    5. Sophia Alice Johnson, 2014. "“Maternal Devices”, Social Media and the Self-Management of Pregnancy, Mothering and Child Health," Societies, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-21, June.
    6. Locock, Louise & Nettleton, Sarah & Kirkpatrick, Susan & Ryan, Sara & Ziebland, Sue, 2016. "‘I knew before I was told’: Breaches, cues and clues in the diagnostic assemblage," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 85-92.
    7. Prior, Lindsay & Evans, Meirion R. & Prout, Hayley, 2011. "Talking about colds and flu: The lay diagnosis of two common illnesses among older British people," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(6), pages 922-928, September.
    8. Philippe Batifoulier & John Latsis & Jacques Merchiers, 2010. "Les priorités de la prise en charge financière des soins. Une approche par la philosophie du besoin," EconomiX Working Papers 2010-2, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    9. Chandwani, Rajesh & Edacherian, Saneesh & Sud, Mukesh, 2019. "Whose Empowerment? National Digital Infrastructure and India’s Healthcare sector," IIMA Working Papers WP 2019-02-01, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    10. Adams, Samantha A., 2011. "Sourcing the crowd for health services improvement: The reflexive patient and "share-your-experience" websites," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(7), pages 1069-1076, April.
    11. Bernardi, Roberta & Wu, Philip F., 2022. "Online health communities and the patient-doctor relationship: An institutional logics perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).
    12. Brothers, Sarah, 2019. "A good “doctor” is hard to find: Assessing uncredentialed expertise in assisted injection," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 237(C), pages 1-1.
    13. Webster, Michelle, 2017. "Similarities and differences in the meanings children and their parents attach to epilepsy medications," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 190-197.
    14. Scavarda, Alice & Ariel Cascio, M., 2022. "Embracing and rejecting the medicalization of autism in Italy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 294(C).
    15. Read, John, 2008. "Schizophrenia, drug companies and the internet," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 99-109, January.
    16. Kuchinskaya, Olga & Parker, Lisa S., 2018. "‘Recurrent losers unite’: Online forums, evidence-based activism, and pregnancy loss," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 74-80.
    17. Collette Sosnowy, 2014. "Practicing Patienthood Online: Social Media, Chronic Illness, and Lay Expertise," Societies, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-14, June.
    18. Stevenson, Fiona A. & Seguin, Maureen & Leydon-Hudson, Geraldine & Barnes, Rebecca & Ziebland, Sue & Pope, Catherine & Murray, Elizabeth & Atherton, Helen, 2021. "Combining patient talk about internet use during primary care consultations with retrospective accounts. A qualitative analysis of interactional and interview data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 272(C).
    19. Greenfield, Geva & Pliskin, Joseph S. & Feder-Bubis, Paula & Wientroub, Shlomo & Davidovitch, Nadav, 2012. "Patient–physician relationships in second opinion encounters – The physicians’ perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(7), pages 1202-1212.
    20. Shachar, Leeor, 2022. "“You become a slightly better doctor”: Doctors adopting integrated medical expertise through interactions with E-patients," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 305(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:62:y:2006:i:10:p:2445-2457. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.