Introduction theory, theorists and the sociology of health / Graham Scambler -- Foucault, health and healthcare / Alan Petersen Chapter -- Consuming bodies : Zygmunt Bauman on the difference between fitness and health / Paul Higgs -- Jurgen Habermas : politics and morality in health and medicine / Gemma Edwards -- Luhmann's social systems theory, health and illness / Barry Gibson and Olga Boiko -- Bourdieu and the impact of health and illness in the lifeworld / Sasha Scambler -- Merleau-Ponty, medicine and the body / Nick Crossley -- World system theory and the epidemiological transition / Martin Hyde And Anthony Rosie -- Archer, morphogenesis and the role of agency in the sociology of health inequalities / Graham Scambler -- Deleuze and Guattari / Nick Fox -- Health and medicine in the information age : Castells, informational capitalism and the network society / Simon Williams.