Risk Benefit Analysis of Health Promotion: Opportunities and Threats for Physical Education

Abstract

This paper examines the oppomnity for developing new professional molds in physical education presented by the increasing popularity of health promotion and lifestyle management techniques. Mobiiing the physical education profession to assist the transformation of North Americans into a society of healthy people, however, must be tempered with a careful look at the threats contained within the opportunity of building a platform upon “suasion for health.” Four contentious issues regarding the implanting of beliefs about desirable levels of health and fitness, and the promotion of techniques to correct and sustain these levels, are identified as grist for professional concern. These are (a) the misuse and costs of suasion, (b) imposing values packaged in scientific wrapping, (c) social inequities and individual consequences resulting from a choice of the locus of responsibility, and (d) biases in the communication of health risk information. This paper then enumerates the direct costs and benefits accruing from the pursuit of health promotion activities in an environment of uncertainty, and recommends the application of a more systematic cost-benefit analysis in the choice of interventions and technologies.