Responses to health promotion campaigns: resistance, denial and othering.

A wide variety of health promotion strategies are employed which are designed to educate members of the public with the ultimate goal of gradual general cultural change and individual behaviour change. The object is a closer alignment of individual and population health-related behaviours with 'ideal' notions of what a healthy citizen might be. These campaigns are not taken up in any straightforward way, but people negotiate the messages in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. Drawing on data generated in focus groups, this article explores this complexity by addressing the themes of resistance, denial and othering. This article also identifies an unintended consequence that may arise from processes of othering that may serve to reinforce stigmatisation and inequality rather than mitigating it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]