Health promotion viewed in a critical perspective

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to reflect critically on the current health promotion initiatives targeting overweight individuals in Western countries. The paper's methodological approach is to draw on analytical findings from my and other sociologists' empirical work on how the problems of overweight people are being defined in various settings in Denmark, england, Australia and the US. I try to illustrate how health promotion targeting overweight individuals can not only be seen as a project aimed at securing longer lives and fewer illnesses for people carrying excess fat but also a moral project that, in a more general sense, aims to tell people how they ought to live their lives. I link this moral aspect of health promotion to a) the medicalization tendency in current Western society (e.g. a growing pharmaceutical industry and its economic interest in transforming the human condition of being overweight into a treatable disorder) and b) the strong focus on individual risk today. One of the main arguments in the paper is that health in relation to overweight is primarily defined from a biomedical perspective that praises certain physical measurements of the body, as well as dominant societal values such as self-responsibility and self-control, and that a combination of biomedicine and these dominating values can lead to health promotion becoming a problematic moral endeavour.

From Carers to Trainers: Professional Identity and Body Work in Rehabilitative Eldercare

“…In line with this, Wolkowitz () argues that a fit, attractive and healthy body seems to be becoming increasingly central to the achievement of professional status and career aspirations. And as Mik‐Meyer () points out, overweight is often equated with laziness, as well as lack of self‐control and self‐responsibility, and thus lack of the main virtues of the modern worker. The above‐described construction of professional rehabilitative care practice and embodiment is thus not without consequences as it further problematizes care worker bodies, and risks putting the many care workers, who are not able or willing to live up to this bodily ideal, in a precarious position on the edge or outside of the realm of professionalism.…”

“…The home trainers' reflections and acts of body work are of course not exempt of influence from broad societal discourses on the imperative of health and specific bodily performances of health (Mik‐Meyer, ). Moreover, care workers as a group are often problematized as an unhealthy ‘high risk population’ with a ‘high prevalence of overweight and low physical capacities’ (Christensen et al , , p. 2) — attributes linked with high rates of sickness absence, deterioration and early retirement (Borg et al , ; Christensen et al , ).…”

Health professionals' perceptions of user involvement in a mental health centre: A critical discourse analysis

“…Several researchers are sceptical about the ideal of user involvement because it shifts a large part of the responsibility for recovering from an illness onto the user, who is already affected by the illness and does not always have the energy to decide on many questions. At the same time, there is uncertainty about how health professionals understand involvement and carry it out in clinical practice with users in mental health centres (Jørgensen et al., 2023; Mik‐Meyer, 2014; Rose, 2019). Despite several proposals for definitions, there is no generalised definition of user involvement.…”

Being with others during physical activity: experiences of well-being among adults with severe obesity

“…The success of lifestyle intervention targeted towards people with severe obesity is often related to weight loss or physical outcomes and directed at the extent to which a person's activity level corresponds with agreed recommendations (WHO, 2003). It has been proposed that lifestyle interventions for individuals with severe obesity should focus less on weight loss as the primary outcome and pay more attention to the independent benefits of being physically active (Aadland and Robertson, 2012;Baillot et al, 2015) and to a greater extent attend to existential experiences (Mik-Meyer, 2014).…”