Health promotion and some implications of consumer choice

To stimulate debate around how health promotion practices add to the choices confronting consumers in a health market place and some implications as a consequence.

We live in a world characterized by consumerism, in which health professionals must compete with a wide array of other producers for the consumer's attention.

A critical review of consumer choice related to health applying theoretical insights from the works by Zygmunt Bauman.

Nurses working at influencing the health status of consumers at an individual level (whatever the setting) need to understand how to address the acknowledgement that people are confronted with a multiplicity of choices (good and bad) in their daily lives and from which they need to make a choice. How health promotion practices are 'sold' to consumers is an important consideration for nurses.

The possibility for nurses to talk past consumers and vice versa exists. Choices made by consumers are premised on what is 'sold', how, by whom and why and has a lot to do with how to get the attention of the consumer.