How do people see the body? The answer varies depending on location, religion and culture. The way Western cultures view the body and the way the body (our own body and that of others) is treated is different from how non-Western cultures view and treat bodies. We can see the differences between Western and non-Western bodies in works such as Anne Fadiman's account of a Hmong child in America and in articles such as Genital Surgeries: Gendering Bodies. In addition to the many differences between Western and non-Western thought, there are also numerous similarities. Especially when it comes to body metaphors. The generalized Western view of the body is that it is object-like. Like a car, the body is made up of different aspects. From a medical point of view, the body is healthy when all its component parts function effortlessly and efficiently. If a part does not meet current standards, it can be disassembled and rearranged so that it works. From a social point of view the body is healthy only when it seems healthy. A healthy body for Western society is slim or athletic, tanned, tall and straight, free of blemishes, clean and well maintained. The medical body and the social body are not always equivalent in Western culture. For example: Athletes appear to be very healthy by society's standards. They are normally tall and athletic and give off a healthy appearance. However, some athletes use anabolic steroids to enhance their performance. Even if they look healthy and act healthy, these drugs have devastating effects within their bodies, such as liver damage and devastating tumor formation. In this example, while the body was healthy by society's standards, it was not healthy by medical standards. In non-Western culture... middle of paper... there are more ways of viewing the body than we were raised to believe. However, we can also see from Western metaphors and Hmong metaphors that a diseased body is recognized by most people as diseased. We can also see with genital surgery that although social standards are different for each culture, each culture uses surgery as a way to enhance the body and make it more pleasing to look at. Even with drastically different views of the medical body, Western and non-Western cultures still have very similar thoughts about how a body should look socially and go through similar rituals to obtain that body. Works Cited Fadiman, Anne. The Spirit catches you and you fall. 1st. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997. Print."Genital Surgery: Gendering Bodies." Page No. Print.Lupton, Deborah. Medicine as culture. 2nd. London: SAGE, 2003. Print.