Physical activity based on the new health promotion perspective: contradictions of an institutional program

This article aims to discuss how the ambiguity of Health Promotion occurs in one physical activity institutional program. Firstly, different approaches to Health Promotion are presented as embodiments of such ambiguities. Then, after a brief discussion about manifestations of such ambiguity in everyday media coverage, we analyze the Agita São Paulo Program, regarded by the World Health Organization as an example of health promotion initiative. The conclusion is that, in spite of being under the umbrella of the so-called new health promotion movement, the Agita São Paulo Program is based upon behavioral/conservative approaches of health promotion because it demonizes sedentarism, blames its followers and supports its strategies in terms of behavioral changes as a way of reducing epidemiologic risks, in spite of social, economic and cultural determinants.

Physical activity; Exercise; Public policies; Health promotion