This article examines the depiction of lay people within television health documentaries. We build on previous research to analyse the medicalization of health coverage and the function of lay depictions in two health documentaries. Depictions of lay people serve to personalize and normalize medical care and to legitimize medical surveillance and intervention. We argue that, in spite of some recent research demonstrating challenges to medicine, a medicalized perspective remains dominant in television coverage. Lay depictions are predominantly drawn on to support medicine but can also serve to invoke challenge. However, when challenges are presented, we contend that these documentaries work to neutralize them through the manner in which content is framed within the exposition.
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