Is this really the case though? The annual check up is something that's been advocated a long time, 50s at least, and predates the obesity epidemic. The annua

Is this really the case though? The annual check up is something that's been advocated a long time, 50s at least, and predates the obesity epidemic. The annual checkup is a symptom of a therapeutic view of health care, a view which cannot be divorced from modernism. The body is a machine which must be oiled and greased, frequently submitted to tests and expert investigation, so it can be tuned perfectly, just like a car, like a machine. This really was _the_ obsession in post war America: that all human activity (really, all of it), needed to be mediated by technology. This included personal transportation, education, cooking, ... and also maintaining our health. And that is where we are now; a chronically medicated population and a bureaucracy optimized to propagate this state of affairs. The annual checkup fits perfectly in this mindset.