This issue contains a set of papers that cohere around behaviour and lifestyle factors. We know that what we do and how we live can make a difference to our subjective and objective health experience and to our long-term health outcomes. We need to critically appreciate the place that behaviour change has in health promotion and public health discourse and recognise what may create and constrain opportunities for change at an individual level. Health education has obvious merits. Alongside other types of intervention, the place and importance of health education in promoting health remains and this is demonstrated in two papers in this issue. The first paper, from Nigeria by Ogunsile and Ogundele, reports on an innovative, creative project designed to improve awareness of healthy eating in adolescents using a board game. The final paper by Zehbe et al. also points to the role that health education plays in addressing the uptake of cervical cancer screening in First Nations women in Canada. Both papers highlight the continuing importance of health education as a key plank of health promotion.
The paper by AlKandari explores another important behavioural public health issue: smoking. Focusing on male student smokers in Kuwait, this paper explores motivation to smoke and makes several recommendations to enhance smoking-related health promotion initiatives including at a policy level. From the UK, Brown et al. present findings from a pilot study on an intervention addressing healthy child weight that involved parental engagement, behaviour change, health literacy and physical activity. They emphasise the necessary long-term nature of such intervention programmes in addressing the issue of childhood obesity. Continuing the theme of physical activity, a paper by Quick et al. presents an enhanced streamlined self-report activity measure for young adults that they suggest would be useful in health promotion practice and for research.
Behaviour and lifestyle factors are important, as demonstrated by the papers in this issue. Attention needs to be given to how people are supported in changing their behaviour whether this is through interventions at an individual or group level or through influencing policy at micro and macro levels in order to create and sustain more supportive environments. This also necessitates critical consideration of the wider social determinants of health that impact on practices at an individual level. Inevitably, our attention therefore turns to some of the underpinning values and principles on which health promotion is predicated, namely empowerment, participation, social justice, equality and equity. Such values and principles are vital in making a difference, in addressing health inequalities and in creating environments where meaningful and sustainable behaviour change can take place.
We hope you enjoy reading this issue and we welcome your comments on, and contributions to, the journal. Please do get in touch via email at: [email protected]