A fresh approach to public health is needed to tackle the lifestyle diseases caused largely by smoking, drinking alcohol, physical inactivity and obesity – so says a recent paper by leading academics published in Critical Public Health.
In the report, Theories of practice and public health: Understanding (un)-healthy practices, the authors explain how social practices reinforce each other. For example, getting a takeaway on a Friday night is often coupled with watching TV. Similarly having a cigarette on a tea break.
The report criticises current behaviour change models, which presume individuals are capable of making better choices on the basis of information they receive. The authors – claiming that humans respond to their immediate environment more strongly than they do information – argue that public health policy should focus on how social practices interact to inform behaviour (see also p3).
For example, although smoking continues to be a problem, the report points out how the 2007 ban on smoking in public places successfully decoupled the relationship between smoking and eating out in restaurants, in turn helping break the habit for many smokers.
If we really want to get people active, do we need to look for the fitness industry’s equivalent of the smoking ban – something to help ensure being active becomes the new habit? It’s an attention-grabbing notion, but as Kate Cracknell asks on page 3, is it realistic to think we can ban people from sitting down?
In line with the report’s findings that humans respond to their immediate environment more strongly than they do information, Cracknell instead suggests: “If we’re going to legislate, let it be for activity rather than against inactivity: making leisure statutory, making active design a compulsory part of urban planning, and creating a national exercise incentive scheme.”
What more can the fitness industry do to change behaviour and promote active lives? Is it in fact time for a top-down intervention – and if so, what are the options? We ask the experts....