In an earlier blog, I wrote about what health promotion is all about and what makes it distinct. In a nutshell, health promotion is about key values (empowerment, control, choice) and approaches that enable individuals and communities to take greater control over the factors that influence their health.
Equating health promotion with trying to make populations healthier is broadly true, but how this is done is the key question. Part of my frustration with the profession of health promotion is the obsession on individuals’ lifestyle – how they eat and exercise for instance – as though this is the answer to tackling complex problems like obesity, diabetes and hazardous alcohol consumption.