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Field Dispatch

#54. Dr Rachael Kent. Who gets to define healthy?

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Notes

Health technologies can measure our steps, sleep, heart rate, food and exercise. But what happens when those measurements begin to feel more authoritative than our own experience?

Dr Rachael Kent is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Economy and Society at King’s College London, Co-Director of the Centre for Technology and the Body, and author of The Digital Health Self: Wellness, Tracking and Social Media.

Rachael tells Andrew about the experience that led to her research: becoming critically ill after under-fuelling and over-exercising while following separate juicing and running apps. When she eventually turned her phone back on in hospital, her running app reminded her that it was time to go for a run.

Their conversation moves from fitness trackers and the quantified self to the moralisation of health, social media’s growing role as an informal public-health platform, AI health advice, loneliness and the disappearance of affordable shared spaces.

They also discuss conspirituality, the politics of online wellness, the appeal of certainty, and an optimisation culture in which there is always another number to improve, product to buy or part of ourselves to fix.

Finally, they consider where responsibility should sit, what legal and collective action might achieve, and how we can protect our attention without turning resistance into another self-improvement project.

  • Rachael’s work and the Kent v Apple collective action

  • Her personal experience of over-exercising and under-fuelling while following health apps

  • The origins and ideology of the quantified-self movement

  • When measurements become more authoritative than bodily experience

  • Guilt, self-worth and performing health online

  • Why optimisation has no natural endpoint

  • Individual responsibility versus structural influences on health

  • Social media as an unregulated, informal public-health platform

  • Why people turn online when conventional healthcare is inaccessible or has failed them

  • AI as a useful tool, personal adviser and apparent companion

  • Personalised algorithms and different versions of reality

  • Loneliness, lost third spaces and the environments pushing people online

  • Conspirituality, distrust and the rage-bait economy

  • Wellness culture, young men, looksmaxxing and the marketisation of identity

  • Legal accountability, technological boundaries and reclaiming attention

More about Rachael:

Key Takeaways

  • Dr Rachael Kent is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Economy and Society at King's College London and Co-Director of the Centre for Technology and the Body, who researches how health technologies shape our relationship with our bodies.
  • Health tracking apps can become more authoritative than our own bodily experience, as illustrated by Kent's personal experience of becoming critically ill from under-fuelling and over-exercising while following separate juicing and running apps.
  • Optimization culture in health and wellness has no natural endpoint, with users constantly pursuing another metric to improve, product to buy, or aspect of themselves to fix.
  • Social media functions as an unregulated, informal public-health platform that people turn to when conventional healthcare is inaccessible or has failed them.
  • The quantified-self movement and wellness culture intersect with conspirituality, loneliness, and the loss of affordable shared spaces, raising questions about where responsibility should sit between individuals and structural influences.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to Dr Rachael Kent that led to her research?

She became critically ill after under-fuelling and over-exercising while following separate juicing and running apps. When she turned her phone back on in hospital, her running app reminded her it was time to go for a run.

What is Dr Rachael Kent's book about?

The Digital Health Self: Wellness, Tracking and Social Media explores how health tracking and wellness culture shape our relationship with our bodies and ourselves.

What is the Kent v Apple collective action?

The show notes reference Kent v Apple as a collective action case, though specific details about its nature are not provided in the notes.

What is conspirituality?

According to the show notes, conspirituality is discussed as part of wellness culture and online health discourse, with a referenced book titled 'Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat.'

Why do people turn to social media for health advice?

People turn to social media as an informal public-health platform when conventional healthcare is inaccessible or has failed them.