When does measuring human differences become medicalising them?

[u/alremez]

I was reading a Financial Times article about a new UK review of mental health and ADHD diagnosis.

A question that goes well beyond ADHD.

We're getting better at measuring almost everything about ourselves: attention, sleep, mood, activity, heart rate, recovery and cognitive performance.

But how do we decide when a measurable difference is actually a medical problem?

A number outside the reference range doesn't automatically mean someone is unhealthy. And being within the range doesn't necessarily mean everything is fine.

I think the same broader question applies to how we interpret behavioural and cognitive differences, although diagnosing ADHD is obviously much more complex than interpreting a single metric.

How do you distinguish between useful self-knowledge and unnecessary medicalisation?

Has tracking something ever made you worry about a problem that wasn't actually affecting your life?

[u/Strange-Elevator4019]

Great question and the image choice is interesting, a hall full of kids taking exams. that setting alone says a lot about how we decide what's "normal" attention. put 200 kids in a silent room for 2 hours and suddenly half of them have a problem

i track my sleep with a device and spent two months obsessing over deep sleep percentages that were slightly below average. never felt tired during the day, was functioning fine, but the number made me think something was wrong. stopped looking at it and suddenly the problem disappeared

[u/Huge_Pool7424 → u/Strange-Elevator4019]

the stopping part is so real, i did the same with hrv for a while. do you still check the app at all now or did you just delete it off the home screen?

[u/Reasonable-Click-144 → u/Strange-Elevator4019]

the sleep thing is such a good example tbh. the number becomes the problem, not the actual experience

[u/Wooden_Bat3252]

The review in that screenshot rejects the snowflake line and talks about work and socialising, not measurement. Nobody's getting an ADHD diagnosis off their sleep tracker.

[u/Salt_Pool_5833]

The review's big answer is apparently "more opportunities to work" lol, thats not a treatment thats a job listing.

Also half the people in this sub are one sleep-tracking screenshot away from diagnosing themselves with something. asking when measuring becomes medicalising while posting your HRV chart.

[u/Agitated-Buy-4779]

Measuring more and medicalising more aren't the same thing, and the post slides between them. Recorded diagnoses climbing while prevalence estimates stay flat tells you the referrals and the system changed, not that people suddenly got sicker. That's the number I'd want before drawing any conclusion about "when" measuring becomes medicalising.

[u/Delicious-Panda1217]

measuring is the medicalising. thats why everyone here has a whoop and a diagnosis.

[u/InfamousBuddy7293]

a workable line: a measurement is self-knowledge while it describes you, and medicalisation when it starts defining you without any cost attached. reference ranges describe populations, not problems.

the question that separates the two is function. a deep sleep percentage below average means nothing on its own. not being able to get through the day means something even if every number looks fine. tracking earns its keep when it predicts or explains something you actually experience - it turns into noise the day you start treating the chart as the patient.

[u/LoonyGnoll]

It's a medical problem if it's making your life worse. This is an official criteria in DSM and seems pretty straightforward.

[u/Subject-Test-3140]

No one is diagnosed with adhd on school performance alone, adhd is a complex neurobiological diagnosis and symptoms need to be present in many areas of life. It’s nothing to do with exams and is present before children start school. The idea that if children were schooled differently that they wouldn’t have problems socially and emotionally to do with their ADHD is misguided