Misguided health education

• Riitta-Liisa Heikkinen Jyväskylän yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33336/aik.96804

Abstract

The justification of health education is based on medicine and the research results achieved through it. By nature, it has been paternalistic, underestimating a person’s capacity to think and act for himself. ln addition, health education includes elements of persuasion and manipulation. And yet health education ought to be able to take into account the logic of a person’s own actions and his internal preferences. This is something that the present-day health education in Finland does not have a sufficient knowledge and skill base for. ln her analysis of Finland’s misguided health education, the author places emphasis on the firm connection that exists between mental and physical wellbeing.