Sadly, it seems we cannot escape the fact that many physiotherapists now believe that part of the answer to the problems now facing the profession can be resolved, at least in part, by telling people to lose weight, stop smoking, and get more exercise. The need to feel part of the move towards population-based primary health care has induced many traditional and orthodox health professionals to scratch their heads and ask what their social function will be in the future. It seems reasonably clear that traditional sources of work, like the specialist care that once took place in large hospitals, and the routine self-limiting, acute musculoskeletal disorders that made up significant … [Read more...] about Stop telling people to lose weight and get more exercise
Work for it – fitness, female and fascism
Physiotherapists are well known for confident physicality. A friend of mine used to say that you could always tell the physiotherapy students at university because they'd be the ones walking around with hardly any clothes on. Happy are we it seems, to betray our confidence in our understanding of the body and how to 'work' it, taking every opportunity to thrust our bodily ideals on others. Often, physiotherapists' projections of the idealised normal and able body cause little offense, but their approach can also cause a great deal of hurt and frustration in the very people they claim to be helping. It would be nice to think that physiotherapists would be united in their opposition to … [Read more...] about Work for it – fitness, female and fascism
Strong and modern – physiotherapy and physical culture
Physiotherapists are very interested in fitness, leisure and sport, but they rarely discuss the history of these ideas, or the place of physical therapies (massage, manipulations and mobilisations, remedial exercise, electrotherapy, hydrotherapy etc.) in the promotion of the health of the population. There are a number of reasons why I think we should pay more attention to this specific history. Firstly, it's one of the few areas where physical therapies have made a genuine contribution to the health of the population. I don't mean the health of individual patients that, taken together, amounts to the health of the population, but rather an approach applied to the population as a whole - … [Read more...] about Strong and modern – physiotherapy and physical culture