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Culture-Bound Syndrome Or Folk Illness

Anome said:
A similar survey of US TV programming might suggest mental health as the national obsession, although this is possibly biased by the number of neurotics producing TV programmes. A better approach might be to observe the advertising for medical treatment, which is much more open in the US than in the UK or Australia (it is legal to advertise prescription medication in the US). Again, from my limited survey, mental health would seem to be the predominant obsession.
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Case in point-
There's a TV commercial that's been getting on my nerves lately. It encapsules the American attitude toward what "mental health" is supposed to look like. It may seem over the top, but really, that's the underlying attitude and the commercial doesn't show even a hint of irony.


Notice that the singing, dancing exemplars of mental and physical health are all women, all in typically dull, stressful or anxiety producing situations. Unspoken, but present in American social attitudes, is the idea that you are a failure if you aren't brimming over with this sort of joy at the prospect of daily drudgery.

If these vitamins don't fix you up, there will be an advertisement for antidepressants and anti-psychotics approved for off-label use in the same block of commercials. There always is.

Sigh :(
 
Christ on a bike, that is a bit creepy. Next stop is 'mother's little helper' and a few fake prescriptions.

"You will jog for the Master Race, and always wear the happy face...", etc
 
I somewhat surprisingly discovered a year or so ago that my own digestion problems were due to milk and milk products. This after several years of being treated for 'irritable bowel syndrome'.

I now ration myself to no more than the equivalent of a half pint of milk a day (and buy lactose free milk for my tea and porridge) - no symptoms. Luckily unlike the gluten thing it is an intolerance, not an allergy, so I can have a small piece of cheese, or a pizza or whatever - just no more than one such item a day.
 
Andy_X said:
Christ on a bike, that is a bit creepy. Next stop is 'mother's little helper' and a few fake prescriptions.

"You will jog for the Master Race, and always wear the happy face...", etc
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Yeah, it's got more than a whiff of "The Stepford Wives" about it, doesn't it?
No wonder everyone's on drugs! :eek:

I'd be tempted to think this was a modern phenomenon, if historical evidence didn't show that a lot of pioneer women were doped up on opium-based snake oil from the traveling shows.
 
The New Yorker has an article on a Swedish culture bound illness that affects young refugees -
The Trauma Of Facing Deportation
In Sweden, hundreds of refugee children have fallen unconscious after being informed that their families will be expelled from the country.

Uppgivenhetssyndrom, or resignation syndrome, is said to only exist in Sweden, and only among refugees. The patients seem to have lost the will to live. "They are like Snow White," a doctor said. "They just fall away from the world."
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http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/03/the-trauma-of-facing-deportation
 
2017-04-02 05.31.56.png
A fascinating reference, lengthy but rewarding. A chilling tale....

(Is it at all strange that this article isn't actually published by the New Yorker until tomorrow?)
 
I'm no dietician, but bread is one of those products that varies so widely in cost and quality (not a strict link, but a broad correlation in my experience) as to be almost a different substance at the upper and lower ends.

The stuff that costs nothing, languishes in polyethene bags for days and is capable of being screwed up into the same dough it was 'baked' from bears no resemblance to the slightly poncy artisan loaves from independent bakers.

I eat very simply indeed Monday to Friday but never skimp on eggs, milk, bread, coffee, yoghurt, cereal, honey, oil etc. Unless you have some direct access to homegrown or local produce, cheap food is generally poor food, and eating it over a long time will take a toll on your (physical and mental) health.

It may simply be an intolerance to crappy food that many people are developing.
 
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escargot1 said:
I've read that the French are obsessed with their livers and will buy over the counter medicines to coddle them.

When I first learned this fact 30-odd years ago (in a book about the power of placebos, no less! :lol: ) it was illustrated with a French advertisment for a 'liver-cleansing' drug featuring a man holding open his chest cavity while a hose played neatly on the relevant organ
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Yes indeed: there's a specific sort of vague unwellness (if that makes sense) which they diagnose as crise de foie. The French are also prone to 'heavy legs'. Similarly, yer Germans tend to come down with Kreislaufzusammenbruch ('circulatory collapse') which, although it sounds serious, is treatable with a couple of duvet days and some iffy patent medicine.
 
Fascinating stuff Cherrybomb, thanks for sharing.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I've been to Holland and saw the 'inspection platform' in loos there - somebody told me that the toilet bowls were imported from Germany.
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Yep- my Sis used to live in Germany and her toilet had a viewing platform. Get your Bristol Chart out and you're good to go :)
 
Coastaljames said:
Yep- my Sis used to live in Germany and her toilet had a viewing platform. Get your Bristol Chart out and you're good to go :)
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Yup, as I've mentioned I lived in Hungary for a while and the platform lavvies were common there. too.
A bit of a shock the morning after a night on the palinka.
 
Coastaljames said:
Yep- my Sis used to live in Germany and her toilet had a viewing platform. Get your Bristol Chart out and you're good to go :)
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What on Earth is a Bristol Chart? I'm just about to have me dinner and sense that I possibly shouldn't google it :eek:
 
Andy_X said:
What on Earth is a Bristol Chart? I'm just about to have me dinner and sense that I possibly shouldn't google it :eek:
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It's a chart of the different categories of poop.
 
It's famous. You can get it as a design on mugs, stationery, teeshirts, phone cases, whatever you like. :D
 
Andy_X said:
What on Earth is a Bristol Chart? I'm just about to have me dinner and sense that I possibly shouldn't google it :eek:
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Don't google it anyway - next thing you know a rep from Bristol would be knocking on your door, offering to sell you a de-luxe hard-bound edition at a special price...
 
Yes! Or (dear God) some 3D / VR version.

Edit: did you choose the phrase 'hard bound' on purpose?? I suspect that may be one of the categories.
 
So Mr hanky is a type 2?
 
As Brits, we are naturally 'culture-bound' to bring any conversation around to the subject of shit and toilets. After the weather of course.
 
My wife and eldest daughter are both nurses. My wife bought the eldest a stool sample last Christmas. It is a tiny stool to sit on encased in a test tube.
 
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