Spiritual_Wellness_Holistic_Health_and_the_Practic

68 Philosophical Foundations of Health Education
its early ties to physical education and medicine, evolved to the point where health
education was associated with physical education and mostly abandoned by medicine.
When medicine lost its obsession with the “ miracle drug ” penicillin, and not being
able to “ cure ” viral infections, it again recognized that education toward prevention
“ works ” and that the mind is connected with the body, influencing disease and healing
processes, and that behavior and lifestyle are associated with health status. Health education
once again became more acceptable to medical science.
As chronic diseases continued to have a heavy impact on the nation ’ s health status
and as chronic diseases, coupled with an aging population, began using the health care
dollar at a rate beyond all predictions, prevention, health education, and health promotion
began to take on new meanings. With many disease states no longer caused by
microorganisms, health education soon became a possible solution to many medical
problems facing the nation, especially the preventable and behaviorally founded diseases
and syndromes.
Health education and health promotion represent a behavioral science discipline,
which offers a unique preventive perspective, knowledgeable enough in the medical
sciences to effectively educate and divert groups of people from needing expensive
clinical medicine. Thus health education and promotion have become more behavioral
science than medical science with physical education and fitness being an important
but minor focus of concern from the holistic perspective.
Health education for many years has promoted “ health ” from a holistic perspective.
Now “holism, ” “lifestyle, ” and “wellness ” are being embraced by many segments
of the helping professions, medicine, and business. Because of the global concern for
health and lifestyle, the fields of health psychology, behavioral medicine, medical/
health anthropology, medical sociology, education, and human services, and others also
claim a similar perspective, resulting in a jungle of theories, philosophies, and
approaches. Health education, needing a clear identity, has tried to decide which aspects
of these various disciplines to accept, embrace, adapt, or reject. It is obvious that many
theories and approaches from these various disciplines are of great use and benefit
to health education and health promotion. The dilemma faced by health education is to
discern which or how much of the theory of related or supportive fields to accept and
apply while avoiding becoming or duplicating that discipline. The result is a jungle of
theory for health education to utilize from other supportive disciplines. However,
the theory in a health education or health promotion context is not clearly delineated, nor
is it organized in a manner that is clear. Consequently health education lacks direction
and a well - organized theoretical base from which to develop the field. Health education
research, certification, competency - based training, teaching and process development,
planning, and evaluation are not done in an organized manner because there is no common
basis of philosophy and theory upon which to rely (Timmreck, Cole, James, &
Butterworth, 1987). Health education ’ s uniqueness beyond related fields lies in its ability
to marry the field of behavior science to medical science knowledge and in turn provide
educational, counseling, and behavior change skills in a variety of settings that
will have the greatest impact on preventing future illness, disability, and death.