It's a perfectly fine analogy. They're both problems which are problems because of our society.
You're suggesting physical illness is more "real" than mental illness.
>We're demanding kids do something that makes them unhappy, and any reaction to it, is labeled a disease.
It's far more than kids not being able to pay attention in class. ADHD affects many aspects of a person's life—and adults too. Living independently with unmedicated ADHD can be incredibly difficult. Everything from social life, working, to driving, is harder/riskier.
The argument against treating ADHD is based on unfounded fears of psychiatry and medication. "What if this, what if that". Well this and that isn't happening, peoples lives are being improved, and people are suffering because of dangerous FUD like this.
> It's a perfectly fine analogy. They're both problems which are problems because of our society.
One is a disease caused by conforming with our sedentary society. The other is what we label those who refuse to go along with our expectations for school, work and conformity. Really, they are more like opposites of one another.
> You're suggesting physical illness is more "real" than mental illness.
That's right. It's pretty hard to rigorously define a mental illness outside of the context of a given society. Mental illnesses are not real in the same sense that, say, a broken leg is real. They are socially determined. Other societies outside the West don't have the same kind of mental illnesses we do.
> ADHD affects many aspects of a person's life—and adults too. Living independently with unmedicated ADHD can be incredibly difficult. Everything from social life, working, to driving, is harder/riskier.
Being ugly makes life hard, too. Does that mean being ugly is a disease? Should all of us ugly people get plastic surgery to treat our disease, as a matter of course?
Ultimately, none of this shows ADHD is an objective disease. In the anthropological view of mental illness, it is a disease - because our society claims that it is, and for no other reason. Psychiatrists are not that much different from witch doctors. (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19710325&id=...)
You're suggesting physical illness is more "real" than mental illness.
>We're demanding kids do something that makes them unhappy, and any reaction to it, is labeled a disease.
It's far more than kids not being able to pay attention in class. ADHD affects many aspects of a person's life—and adults too. Living independently with unmedicated ADHD can be incredibly difficult. Everything from social life, working, to driving, is harder/riskier.
The argument against treating ADHD is based on unfounded fears of psychiatry and medication. "What if this, what if that". Well this and that isn't happening, peoples lives are being improved, and people are suffering because of dangerous FUD like this.