Building in prevention: Nudging towards physical activity and public health

Abstract

Health interventions can be seen as initiatives that seek to prevent the emergence and development of impaired public health. Initiatives made in the area of prophylaxis can be experienced as anything from direct invasions of personal freedom to small traffic bumps on the roads. In this spectrum this chapter devotes its focus primarily on the small bumps on the road by initially discussing how physical structural prevention can be an appropriate strategy not only to bring about behavioural change in the population as a whole but also to reduce the negative consequences of a stigmatising health discourse. To get an overall view of the effects of physical, structural preventive action, the second half of this chapter presents a model that, with its theoretical basis, may provide guidance in the compilation of new preventive strategies. This leads onto a concluding discussion of the ways in which preventive work might be changed to direct focus onto a greater extent on establishing frameworks for people to master their own lives instead of one-sided initiatives, which leave the individual with a sense of guilt at their own illness.