1. We live in an increasingly reflexive society with a heightened awareness of our bodies. According to Naomi Wolf, how does the beauty myth perpetuate such reflexivity? 

2. How is risk-taking behavior related to Michel Foucault’s idea of limit experiences? What satisfaction do people get from risk-taking behavior?

3. What are the pros and cons of our obsession with our appearance and the fitness of our bodies? 

4. What are the characteristics of a profession? What factors can help explain why physicians have become increasingly deprofessionalized? 

5. What are the weaknesses of the health care system in the United States? How are these weaknesses related to systems of stratification? 

6. Explain the increasing medicalization of society. How has it affected women in particular? 

7. How have the Internet and new social media technologies affected the consumption of health care? What are some of the disadvantages of having access to more information about health care? 

8. In what ways are patients increasingly consumers of health care? How has this change affected the power of physicians? 

9. How has globalization tended to widen global disparities in health care? What kinds of health problems are most likely to be found in the Global South? What could be done to avoid some of these problems?

10. What are the major borderless diseases? In what ways are they made worse by globalization? Can globalization also play a role in curing them, or at least in reducing their prevalence?