Whose Health Is It Anyway?

Barbara Myers examines the health trainers initiative, a unique peer-to-peer approach to healthcare that targets marginalised people whose lifestyle may be the biggest risk to their health. The public are repeatedly told on television, in magazines and by medical professionals what is and is not good for our health. So why can some people still not lose weight, stop smoking and get fit? Barbara asks if health trainers, a new breed of personal health trainers, are the key to a healthier Britain. Set up specifically to target marginalised communities, the health trainers initiative trains people from those same communities to disepense health advice to their peers. The programme examines the outcomes of the initiative and asks whether this method is more effective than more traditional top-down approaches to trying to change behaviour that can be harmful to health.