In his concept of the panopticon, Foucault adopted Jeremy Bentham’s prison design as a metaphor for modern disciplinary power. According to Foucault, discipline is invoked through an individual’s consciousness of permanent visibility and surveillance, resulting in compliant and self-policing behaviours as if constantly being watched (Nettleton, 1997). Engrained in this concept is Foucault’s notion of discourse, where he asserts that power is fabricated through language and practices, acting as leverage in legitimising power (Nettleton, 1997).
In turn, discourse influences how expert knowledge and ideologies are constructed and maintained within social institutions and processes, and the ensuing power relations observable in society (Nettleton, 1997). Foucault’s concept of the panopticon and the notion of discourse are emblematic of contemporary health practices, particularly informing the analysis of responses to the obesity epidemic.
Using these two concepts of the panopticon and discourse, this essay will provide a critical exegesis of western responses to the obesity epidemic at the individual level, regarding discipline regulated through hypervigilance towards obesity, and the salience of self-surveillance and compliance. On a wider macro level, biomedical and media discourses and society’s reliance on healthcare experts will be argued as a tool for fostering self-regulation in light of Foucault’s theory.
Finally, limitations of his theory will be discussed. The panopticon is an architectural design for a prison, conceptualised by Jeremy Bentham in the eighteenth century (Bentham, 1995). This institutional building is circular in shape, with a single watchtower at its core for managers or staff of the building to observe inmates at all times, without the inmates knowing when (or if) they are being watched; “an omnipresence” (Marsh, 2007; Bentham, 1995).
Under the constant threat of being watched, inmates internalise this gaze and develop compliant and self-policing behaviours, with the assumption of ubiquitous surveillance acting as disciplinary control (Marsh, 2007; Olson, 2015). Visibility replaces force as a form of social control, with Bentham describing the panopticon as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example” (1995, p. 31).
Far from solely being a building, the panopticon can inform the ways individuals constitute themselves as subjects, shifting from the previous notion of a ‘docile’ body, to that of one who possesses self-discipline, control, responsibility and surveillance (Nettleton, 1997). As put forward by Nettleton citing Ogden (1995), “it is not environmental factors, or bacteria or viruses per se that cause illness; the critical factor resides in individuals, more particularly, their self-control” (p. 14). The diffusion of this panoptic mode of power is evidenced throughout society and among preoccupations within current discourses on health, and is core to Foucault’s work (Annandale, 1998; Nettleton, 1997). Inherent to the notion of health discourses is the requirement of individuals to participate in taking care of themselves, albeit provided with techniques deployed by ‘experts’ in the field, to shape how they think about their health (Nettleton, 1997).
Thus, health discourses have shaped and created paradigms that have gained the status of ‘truth’, governing the ways in which the self and health is managed (Nettleton, 1997). This is in turn controls what health behaviours (or resulting consequences of poor choices) are seen as normalised or deviant, and desirable or undesirable, established by the dominant discourses provided by experts; the constructed ‘truth’ (Armstrong, 2002).
However, these forms of discipline and self-governance are only effective if individuals are able to react in different ways, and as such, there is no circumscribed reaction to any given discourse (Nettleton, 1997). Obesity has become a widespread public health issue, reaching epidemic proportions across the globe (Monsey & Gerhard, 2014). Being obese can result in increased risk of developing numerous chronic diseases, and places a significant burden on both the individual and society as a whole (Monsey & Gerhard, 2014).
Biomedical and media discourses tend to vilify obesity, conceived within rhetoric as an issue for concern and requiring intervention, alongside media material presenting unacceptable and acceptable bodies, with the thin ideal acceptable, and obesity stigmatised and requiring intervention (Couch et al. , 2015). Additionally, within medical literature and public health campaigns, portrayals of obesity have added to the moral panic surrounding the issue, with phrases such as “a public health burden” and “health-time bomb” used (Lobstein et al. 2010, p. 5). In this sense, power is exercised through the biomedical discourse, based on the constructed truth that healthcare experts posses moral authority over patients by being able to explain individual health problems, and provide solutions or treatment for them (Nettleton, 1997). These discourses, available to a majority of people in society, focus not only on the ill, but the healthy and potentially ill, thus deeming that surveillance and monitoring of the individual and community is essential (Olson, 2015).
This lends itself to Foucault’s conceptualisation of the panopticon, highlighting the ways that biomedical and media discourses can reproduce norms and act as a form of social control, being self-governance and discipline in regards to the obesity epidemic. Self-governance implies an ongoing project, acting to regulate one’s own conduct by assessing prevalent discourses in relation to themself (Nettleton, 1997). Looking through Foucault’s lens, it can be seen as a combination of panoptic control and confidence in discourse.
Take, as an example, self-governance through hyper-vigilance towards diet as a response to the obesity epidemic. This is regarded as a voluntary, individual choice, requiring awareness of public health campaigns, reliance on healthcare advisors, and internalisation and reproduction of biomedical discourse (Crawford, 1994; Nettleton, 1997). An individual can choose what and when to eat, make healthier choices, increase their fruit and vegetable intake, and lower their overall caloric intake to maintain or lose weight – subscribing to ‘truth’ in discourse that this will prevent obesity.
When an individual adheres to their diet they are undertaking a self-monitored routine, and are using self-discipline to reach their goals. Although this is an individual process, the biomedical discourse (inclusive of techniques such as BMI, medical checkups, recommendations provided by experts), exerts governance over individuals, making them monitor and discipline what they eat and drink as if being scrutinised at all times, and enforces the belief that lower body weight is associated with greater health (Nettleton, 1997; Olson, 2015).
Despite not being forced to eat healthily, maintain or lose weight, these discourses exercise power over individuals, inducing compliant behaviours to create normal, healthy citizens, validating the dominant moral order as defined by discourse (Crawford, 1994). An alternative view to how Foucault’s notion of the panopticon and discourse inform the analysis of responses to the obesity epidemic can be observed through Szasz’s concept of “inverted quarantine” (2007).
This is described as an individualistic approach to a collective problem, where one shields themself from threat by erecting a barrier to their disease-inducing surroundings (Szasz, 2007). This is exercised through a consumeristic response where an individual purchases certain products that promise to protect them from harm (Szasz, 2007).
In the case of Foucault and responses to obesity, individuals (who may not be overweight) can purchase products that promise to satisfy that need, such as hunger suppressants, particular vitamins, and ‘fad’ products that claim to burn fat and increase metabolism. In doing so, individuals are self-governing to protect themselves from harm arising from being obese, and are responding to and internalising biomedical discourse that has urged individuals to display self-discipline and prevent themselves from becoming obese (Nettleton, 1997).
While Foucault’s notion of discourse and the panopticon can assist in explaining western responses to the obesity epidemic, through hyper-vigilance to obesity through self-discipline, complying with the acceptable thin ideal determined through discourse, and purchasing items that claim to shield and prevent one from the harms of obesity, several weaknesses arise within the strengths of this approach. Firstly, discursive practices almost exclusively focus on the way it constructs knowledge and ‘truths’ to regulate the behaviour of individuals (Olson, 2015).
There is little discussion in Foucault’s work of the ways in which individuals may reject discourse, fail to self-regulate and resist dominant moral order. This is problematic when looking at the issue of obesity, as it cannot explain the actions of those who are already obese. Similarly, Foucault’s theories do not take into account the social determinants of health that may increase the likelihood of being obese, such as lack of education, unemployment, social isolation and socioeconomic status (Phelan et al. , 2010).
For instance, if an individual does not understand that calorie dense foods and sedentary lifestyles leads to obesity, and has a low-income, this individual’s social position may hinder their ability to self-discipline and comply to dominant discourses, though these discourses still retain their authority (Nettleton, 1997). Instead, they are acting within their means, with behaviours anchored in their social and economic circumstances (Phelan et al. , 2010). Through analysing Foucault’s notions of discourse and the anopticon and how it can inform the analysis of western responses to the obesity epidemic, this paper has demonstrated that biomedical and media discourses mediate panoptic forms of power, causing individuals to develop self-policing and compliant health behaviours.
These self-policing behaviours have been discussed as hyper-vigilance towards obesity, through adhering to strict diet plans as if being under surveillance at all times, with the instilled discursive ‘truth’ that ower body weight translates to increased overall health, and Szasz’s (2007) concept of “inverted quarantine”, where individual’s purchase goods in an attempt to shield themselves from the threat of obesity. Drawing on the work of Foucault, this paper explored how the concepts of discourse and the panopticon exert governance over populations, particularly in regards to the reliance on expert knowledge, resulting in personal responsibility for self-discipline and behaviour modification to comply with dominant discourse.
