In The Nemesis of Medicine, Ivan Illich displayed the essential elements of his first critique of health, stating that the widespread industrialization of healthcare and the medicalization of life in modern society create several forms of iatrogenesis or damage to health, as a result of people losing the capacity to behave autonomously vis à vis disease, pain and aging. In the second social critique of health, Illich deals with the manifestation of a new social iatrogenesis resulting from a sort of obsession with bodily health and its production through physical activities, diets, etc. in a condition of apparent autonomy. This is "healthy body" consumerism, which responds less to the actions of physicians and more to information publicized by the media and by unofficial therapeutical agents.
History; Public Health; Ethics