Spiritual_Wellness_Holistic_Health_and_the_Practic

New Health Promotion Movement 261
and environment. Similarly, current injury prevention programs, which feature people
with disabilities in their visual ad campaigns accompanied by slogans like “ Don ’ t let
this happen to you, ” make an identification of the person with the disability. As Wang
(1992) has pointed out.
if the public health perspective rightly contends that becoming disabled is an unacceptable
risk in our society, it paradoxically often fails to acknowledge the stigmatizing
notion that being disabled is an unacceptable status in our society (p. 1093;
emphasis in original).
A socialized conceptualization of health, like that of WHO, makes a separation
between people and their health status. On the one hand this provides a refreshing alternative
to the above noted tendency to stigmatize and marginalize persons with a disease
or disability by identifying them with their disease or disability. On the other hand,
however, the separation between individuals and their health may itself be problematic
to the extent that it ignores or minimizes the everyday reality that constitutes that person
’ s life. Regardless of the social context of their condition, people with diseases or
disabilities do have pain, discomfort, and difficulties in managing their everyday lives.
The lifestyle approach to health promotion was criticized for turning health into a
commodity, something to be bought and sold in the marketplace, which now included
not simply the physician ’ s office or the hospital but also the health food store, exercise
club, or stress management program. Ironically, however, it could be argued that by
redefining health more broadly as a resource — like wealth or education — which is variously
distributed among people, we may risk further commodifying the notion of
health. Health becomes even more than before something that resides outside of oneself,
determined now by the entire social context, and conferred by a new set of experts
with new knowledge bases and new skills. As a result, people may feel even less control
over their health than before.
Becker ’ s (1986) caution against health becoming “ the paramount value of our
society ” in the lifestyle approach to health promotion also deserves to be carefully
examined where the new health promotion is concerned. For in broadening the concept
of health to embrace the whole of life, advocates of a socialized version of health
may inadvertently make of health a moral value. Health risks becoming “ health - ism, ”
that is, a monolithic concept that attempts to explain everything and, thereby, ends up
explaining nothing. If health becomes the analytical lens through which all social
issues are seen, it may dilute and obfuscate not only health - related efforts but other
social and political efforts as well.
Much of this difficulty with the definition of health can be resolved if we realize
that health has both a micro - level individual dimension and a macro - level structural
dimension. In her discussion of the political implications of different theories of disease
causality, Sylvia Tesh (1988) is critical of the “ web of casuality ” theory because
it “ hides its politics ” (p. 70). On the other hand, she goes on to say:
The multicasual theory lacks guidelines for policy makers whereas the structural view
lacks guidelines for individuals . We often need, it seems, personal policies that are