ABSTRACT
In this chapter I sketch out a sociological perspective on the development of key elements of health promotion ideology and practice. In particular, I consider the sociopolitical frameworks in which the new health movement has been able to intervene in a wider agenda for health. The discussion explores some of the origins of the extended concept of health upon which the movement relies and the relationships between this extension and more general socio-political changes of the last two decades. The purpose of the chapter is to situate health promotion in a sociological perspective on social and political change. To that end, the chapter is divided into four sections. In the first I offer some background comment on the concept of lifestyle. In the second, I discuss briefly the development of ‘extended concepts’ of health and, in particular, the expression of these in philosophies of ‘wellbeing’. In the third section, I explore some of the sources from which such extended concepts
derive. In the fourth section I address some key issues concerning the ways in which health promotion schemes are enmeshed in contradictory social, political and cultural influences. My argument is that lifestyle concepts, categories and projects are a vehicle of social differentiation: they serve to dislocate and disaggregate population sectors into targeted, bounded and discrete units. These ‘units’ are constructed through research and evaluation procedures, through marketing and administrative systems and through locally sensitive pro grammes and practical schemes. The consequence of the development of lifestyle-oriented practices has, however, led to the dedifferentiation of health in the context of wider social and political structures: they serve to ‘open up’ health to exogenous social, cultural, economic and political interests.
