ABSTRACT
This chapter draws upon work from the sociology of consumption and the sociology of health and illness in order to explore the relationship between health promotion and ‘health-related’ consumer culture. It argues that health promotion has emerged within contemporary consumer culture and is centrally concerned with influencing patterns of consumer choice. Under contemporary consumer culture consumption preferences are determined by a wide range of social factors that interact in complex ways with the discourse of health promotion. The chapter concludes that health promotion would benefit greatly by coming to terms with cultural aspects of the interaction between consumption, risk and health, and, conversely, shifting away from its. current emphasis upon individual and psychological aspects of health-related behaviour (Bunton et al., 1991).
