ABSTRACT
Health and wellbeing have become increasingly visible within physical education discourse globally in the past two to three decades. What health means and how physical education might contribute to it have changed significantly over time. In many countries across the Global North, health is increasingly becoming the leading justification for physical education in schools, from a policy perspective at least if not in school practice. This chapter explores the changing ways in which physical educators have thought about physical education’s relationship to health. A pathogenic view of physical activity as a disease prevention form of health promotion remains the currently dominant understanding of the relationship between physical education and health. The two core concepts linking physical education and health from a pathogenic perspective are physical activity and physical fitness. A salutongenic view of health has recently challenged this dominant view. This important theory of health promotion may well provide the tools for rethinking physical education’s relationship to health and wellbeing in precarity, in particular its focus on Sense of Coherence and the meaningfulness, comprehensibility, and manageability of life to individuals and communities.
