The Biomedicalization of Aging

Our understandings of age, and aging, are often worked within particular frameworks. Our ability to understand derives directly from the various schema we often unknowingly utilize. As discussed throughout this blog, perceptions of aging are vast and differing. The concept of biomedicalization is a useful tool for better understanding how aging is often discussed in ‘Euro-American’ culture. To quickly deconstruct the term, biomedicalization, we must understand the Foucualdian concept of biopower (Foucault 1978). Biopower is essentially a “microphysics of power” (Clarke et al. 2003); the bio- aspect is meant to highlight that this is power of life-itself. Therefor biomedicalization can be seen as the use of biopower within a medical framework. Such a short explanation could do no justice to how important such a concept is, but I assure you the implications are impressive.

This biomedicalization surrounding the discourse of aging is precisely what allows for things such as ‘Anti-Aging creams’. Carrying with the medicalized background, a supposed issue (aging) is viewed in respect to its biological components, and response is carried out in a medicalized fashion. Aging is then treated as if it were a medical problem; the discourse becomes medical, the solutions become medical. The questions of whether one is young, old, or otherwise are fashioned around the locus of biological and medical practice. The very manner in which age is framed becomes directly intertwined with a normalizing discourse.

Following these lines, if aging has increasingly become discussed in strictly biomedicalized terms, we lose sight of other aspects of aging. As discussed throughout this blog, notions of age are in truth only partially defined by the biological. ‘Anti-Aging’ products begin to take the discourse towards fetishistic avenues. Products explicitly say, with no hint of the obvious irony, that the goal is to make users ‘younger’ and ‘youthful’ (Vincent 2009). However, we know that not only is ‘youth’ not necessarily an automatic positive, but its definition is not strictly biological.

Carrying this towards in-class materials, we can look at the example of airplane seats and notions of ‘overweight’. The discussion becomes confined to biomedical terms of ‘obesity’ and the like, while entirely ignoring the other factors at work (normalization etc.). In a similar fashion, aging becomes a topic discussed through lenses of biological discourse.

Following this line of thinking, what are some of the relatively unquestioned things that operate in-line with the biomedicalization of aging?

Sources: Clarke, Adele E., Laura Mamo, Jennifer Ruth Fosket, Jennifer R. Fishman, and Janet K. Shim.Biomedicalization: Technoscience, Health and Illness in the U.S.. Durham & London: Duke University press, 2010.

Focault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. New York: Random House, 1978.

Meisner, Brad A. “Physicians’ attitudes toward aging, the aged, and the provision of geriatric care: a systematic narrative review.” Critical Public Health. no. 1 (2012): 61-72.

Vincent, John Albert. “Ageing, Anti-ageing, and Anti-anti-ageing: Who are the Progressives in the Debate on the Future of Human Biological Ageing?.” Medicine Studies. (2009). http://link.springer.com.proxy.library.upei.ca/article/10.1007/s12376-009-0016-6/fulltext.html (accessed November 8, 2013).