Health And Illness In Ethan Watters The Mega-Marketing Of Depression

‘Health’ is a very broad notion, affected by a wide range of individual characteristics, behaviours and contextual factors.

In 1946 the World Health Organisation (WHO) defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. This definition integrates the main concepts of health and identifies that health can be viewed differently by individuals and groups (Bowden, 2006). Health and well-being are the result of a combination of physical, social, intellectual and emotional factors (Dunkley, 2000a).

As stated by the World Health Organization (WHO), ‘health’ is defined as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO, 1948). The health and wellbeing of individuals is generally determined by their circumstances and environment, a phenomenon referred to as the social determinants of health. WHO describes the social determinants of health as:

As health is a socially constructed concept, the influence of culture would create the idea of what is deemed as healthy and what isn't. This idea is continuously debated within society due to individual perceptions. In health and social care, service users will have their

Naidoo and Wills(2001, p.47) “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’ - WHO (1946).” This definition falls into a holistic way of defining health, which believes that there are more areas to look at when thinking of health than just simply the absence of a disease. It considers the cause of why someone is ill and not just simply about ’fixing it’.

Have you ever heard the quote “Health is not valued till sickness comes,” before? Or how about “To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear,”? From the fact that these quotes are from Thomas Fuller and Buddha, it’s clear to see that throughout the history of the world, plenty a focus has been on the topic of health. Over the years, questions like these have been asked: How do we keep ourselves healthy? In which ways should we keep ourselves healthy? Is healthcare a right, or a commodity? What is ‘health’? Even today, these questions are hotly debated. However, as our country becomes more industrialized, and healthcare becomes more accessible, (although often not in equal amounts),

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” (World Health Organisation, 2011)

In the article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food”, the writer Michael Moss mentioned that growing weight problem happened in America has become a major health crisis issue. While people are talking about obesity, they care more about how much sugar, salt and fat they consume during a day, which kind of processed food does harm to their body. It seems that food companies have an inalienable relationship with consumers’ health conditions, because they provide us with what we eat. These companies made their food taste better (putting sugar, salt and fat in product) for attracting more customers, and also tried to protect their individual customers from the “obesity epidemic”, which is named by Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Moss, 260), without losing market share. It put them a moral judgment of creating food that customers like or be good to customers’ health. However, another writer Ethan Watters describe a story in his article “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan” that in the market of the depressant drug in Japan, pharmaceutical companies faced a dilemma. They found it so hard to construct a Western-view concept of “depression” among a large-scale demographic of Japanese people, to contribute to their mental health problem, and to make a profit for sure. In the former case, food companies applied multiple marketing strategies to collective demographics to create more individuals’ desire of consumption, while they were striving to protect

In Ethan Watters’ essay, “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan,” he has a discussion with Dr. Laurence Kirmayer regarding Kirmayer’s invitation to the International Consensus Group on Depression and Anxiety. In their discussion Kirmayer talks about how the basis of his invitation was on the notion that he as the director of the Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry at McGill could add to the answer the large pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKline was looking for. The question at hand was how culture influences the illness experience, but more specifically how depression is influenced by culture in Japan. If the conference was a success, the company would be able to enter and expand into a market worth billions of dollars. The reason that the cultural aspect of depression was very important was because in countries like Japan, the American conception of depression was taken as a more serious illness, rivaling heights of diseases like schizophrenia. The company hoped that by somehow changing the Japan’s perception of the illness from being something social or moral to the American conception where expressing the illness to others is considered being strong person rather than being a weak one, that their drug Paxil would be able to sell to the market, which is where the scientific and economic aspects of depression come into effect. The scientific and economic aspects take place due to the intentions of the company to sell the drug, and the drug’s ability to help

In order to break through to Japan, GlaxoSmithKline had to understand how their drug might fit into Japanese culture by understanding their concept of depression. Although the diagnosis of depression became more widely employed around the world during the 1980’s, “...the experience of deep sadness and distress in Japan retained the characteristics of the premodern conception of the mid-twentieth century idealization typus melancholicus, the idea that overwhelming sadness was natural, quintessentially Japanese, and, in some ways, an enlightened state”(522). These feelings of overwhelming sadness were positively looked upon through the media since people held high regard for personal hardships that build character. Watters’ article discusses how drug companies like GlaxoSmithKline reshape the Japanese culture through “mega-marketing” and proves that the pharmaceutical company’s expanding globalization of Paxil in Japan alters the Japanese individual’s concept of depression by changing the native culture and beliefs of the country through the process of approaching recent concerns and utilizing important people in Japan. Through advertisements, the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline rearranges the Japanese idea of depression such that it differs from society’s existing standard of

In modern society there is a general consensus that ‘good health’ is something that everyone wants to experience and that each individual knows what this involves. Because there are so many different definitions of health and ill health it can become a very complicated concept. Walsh (2011) states that “In sociological terms ‘health’ and ‘illness’ are contested concepts. This means that the general meaning of these words should not be taken for granted.

One cannot talk about health without making reference to the definition proffered by the World Health Organization (WHO) that describes health as a complete state of physical, psychological and social well-being and not the mere absence of infirmity or a disease2. This therefore suggest that health must be viewed not just from the physical or biological point of view but also along the social, psychological and emotional dimensions. Similarly, the mere fact that an infirmity is not present does not necessarily mean that a person can be considered healthy. To be healthy is to maintain an optimal balance between a person’s physical, psychological, emotional and social aspects of life. Thus to be physically healthy but emotionally, psychologically and/or socially unstable means that an individual is ‘ill’. This brings to the fore, the fact that one cannot talk about health, without talking about mental

Medicalization, labeling, and stigma are all contributors to our understanding of illness at a societal,

Western diets and lifestyle have become more and more popular in many countries all over the world, because western countries are more developed and people think western diets and lifestyle are healthy to people. It is a common knowledge that health includes three aspects: physical health, mental health, and social well-being health, not just without any disease. Western diets refer to the food as red meat, sugary desserts and drinks, high-fat foods and refined grains, etc. Western lifestyle is the lifestyle of low levels of exercise, more consumption of fast food, sedentary lifestyle, more online communication than face-to-face contact, smoking, drinking, etc. This essay

As the definition of health has evolved over the years, the framework surrounding the concept has as well. For instance, rather than measure health versus illness, it is now more common to compare “wellness” to illness. Similarly, the context of responsibility has been shaped and redefined to fall on the shoulders of the individual. That is, now a person’s health is seen almost exclusively as his or her responsibility. Rather than consider illness as an unfortunate and usually uncontrollable happening, more recently, it has been seen as a moral failing on the part of the afflicted (Faircloth 2017). Any activity that does not promote wellness is seen as risking illness. Hence, because we have control over our actions, a persona health status at any given juncture is the result of his or actions alone.