The title of this blog post, "lifestylism," is a new term for me. I encountered it in a paper* in which the authors took a somewhat critical view of health promotion efforts with people who might be considered "disadvantaged."
I have recently been doing a lot of thinking about some related issues. Specifically, there is a sense among some in public health that "we know" what people should do to enhance health (although ironically many in public health do not seem to do a good job with their own mental/physical health) and it is a matter of: getting resources to people; motivating people; teaching people how to think differently; or some other tactic(s) to "fix" people so "they" are able to be more like "us." This thinking unfortunately fails to account for or even acknowledge individual, cultural and/or spiritual beliefs that may be different from the prevailing views among public health professionals. Admittedly some things considered cultural practices are things many people including me cannot support or respect. Others, like unwillingness to take advantage of some available treatment options - when individual health of an adult is involved - seem to me at times to be decisions based on personal preferences that health and medical professionals should respect. I do struggle with the idea of respecting lifestyle choices that appear to be related to increases in incidence or severity of chronic disease, but I have found that engaging in these behaviors are not confined to those considered disadvantaged. *Katie Powell, Miranda Thurston & Daniel Bloyce (2017) Theorising lifestyle drift in health promotion: explaining community and voluntary sector engagement practices in disadvantaged areas, Critical Public Health, 27:5, 554-565, DOI: 10.1080/09581596.2017.1356909
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AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
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