ABSTRACT
As illustrated in Chapter 1, in recent years there has been an explosion in the number and frequency of health promotion campaigns that feature sport, exercise and physical activity. Physical activity health promotion (PAHP) has not just joined alcohol, tobacco and diet to become one of the four main targets of health promotion, but is claimed to be ‘today’s best buy in public health’ (AMRC 2015; DoH 2009a). These policies are premised on and serve to perpetuate the enduring sport-health ideology, but their contemporary manifestation is also inextricably tied to the development of what Armstrong (1995) termed surveillance medicine, the reconceptualization of health identified by Crawford (2006) and others, and the development of NPH (Lupton 1995). Fundamentally, moreover, they also represent a key stage in the medicalization of sport and the professional project of sports medicine. This chapter extends these introductory comments through an examination of the role of sport, exercise and physical activity in contemporary health promotion campaigns. It builds on existing critiques of health promotion per se, and PAHP in particular. While it concludes by examining comparable developments in America, the bulk of the analysis in this chapter focuses on nine PAHP documents published in the UK since 2004. These are:
At Least Five a Week: Evidence of the Impact of Physical Activity and its Relationship With Health (DoH 2004);
Be Active, be Healthy (DoH 2009a); Let’s get Moving (DoH 2009b); Exercise for Life: Physical Activity in Health and Disease (RCP 2012); Moving More, Living More. The Physical Activity Olympic and Paral-
ympic Legacy for the Nation (HM Govt and Mayor of London 2014);
Turning the Tide of Inactivity (UKactive 2014); Everybody Active, Everyday: An Evidence Based Approach to Phys-
ical Activity (PHE 2014);
Tackling Physical Activity – A Coordinated Approach (APCPA 2014); and
Exercise: The Miracle Cure and the Role of the Doctor in Promoting it (AMRC 2015).
