Medicalization of Eating and Feeding

Synonyms

Medical epistemology; Medical power; Normalization; Pathologization

Introduction

A variety of developments over the past century have produced the conditions in which eating and feeding are transformed from practices embedded in social or cultural relations into explicit medical practices. The rise of medical science, expansion of the pharmaceutical and food industries, escalating concern over diet-related diseases and conditions, and growing anxiety over infant and childhood development have contributed to a process of medicalization.

Medicalization is a sociological concept that analyzes the expansion of medical terminology, interventions, or practitioners into areas of the life that were previously considered outside the medical sphere. For instance, undereating has previously been defined using theological language, as an act of fasting demonstrating a saintly character. Such practices are now understood through medical terms of anorexia nervosa, malnutrition, or general...