Article April 17, 1989 Issue

Second Thought

Looking again at news and commentary

American Health

"Doing Better, Feeling Worse: A new book says our concern for health is turning us into a nation of hypochondriacs.

"Dr. Arthur Barsky, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, is worried.... Barsky thinks we've carried our concern about health too far, to a point that's simply unhealthy....

"Barsky's not arguing that we go back to the days of sloth and gluttony.... But he does believe we should stop thinking of health as an end in itself, and see it instead as the condition that lets us do the things we really want to get done [as he states in his new book, Worried Sick: Our Troubled Quest for Wellness (Little Brown & Co.)]....

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