Empty health instructions or real health skills – what do you want most?
When we have to do something new and different than we usually do, it is fundamental in us that we want to know why. This is also precisely why empty instructions typically create resistance, while knowledge, skills and trust in us as individuals create meaning and activate our desire to take personal ownership and co-responsibility. And, of course, that also applies when it comes to our health.
The fact that very few people like instructions and instructions that are not followed up with knowledge and explanations has long been understood in the business world. Here, skilled managers strive to activate the employees’ individual drive – both by providing skills such as continuing education and knowledge sharing, but also by creating clarity about the company’s mission – its why.
Of course, the same should apply in the field of health, but unfortunately I often see how instructions and empty instructions take precedence over knowledge, explanations and the upgrading of individual health skills.
An example of this we see in the diet area and in the whole diet debate, which is often more about do’s and don’ts than about what food and the different diet trends actually do for our biology. We give instructions – not knowledge and skills – and the result is not only health confusion but also resistance, because it is deep in us humans that we need explanations, knowledge and personal ownership if we are to do anything different than we usually do. If we are to take ownership of anything.
I understand very well that many people draw the ‘Rasmus-opposite’ card when the instructions provided are not accompanied by meaningful explanations in which one can see oneself. I understand this especially if one feels manipulated with or if one is met by intimidation campaigns.
And so we have seen another example of an instructional trend during the corona crisis. Even though we have a healthcare system that deserves great respect for its colossally effective power of action, it is still striking to me how little focus there is on providing healthcare explanations behind the instructions we are all faced with in these weeks and months. What exactly is the virus’ journey in the body? What does that virus really do to us? Do we understand that, do we both understand how we protect each other and improve our resilience to it?
If there’s something we do not understand, there’s something we do not know!
If the instructions for action do not make sense, or if we feel manipulated, it may happen that reason smokes, fear takes over, or that Danes feel directly down to. It can create resistance and defiance rather than responsible co-ownership. And so no one wants that – neither our competent healthcare system nor the individual competent Dane.
Health professional knowledge creates personal drive
In the field of health, there is simply a lack of forces that serve solid knowledge about health in a way that can be used at all levels – to make choices that are based on what we know from research and the health science textbooks. And since there can be a big difference in what provides health for you who do not fail anything, you who have diabetes 2, you who are unwanted overweight or you who are something completely fourth, well then we need knowledge, so we can each make the healthy decisions that suit our individual health.
I therefore have a great desire that we in Denmark begin to think about health knowledge and skills together with health instructions, so that we also begin to recognize the individual competent person’s ability to make good and rational health choices, if we otherwise allow it.
And it starts already in Folkeskolen, where fascinating health biology must be on the school schedule in line with subjects such as Mathematics, History and Danish – so we can ensure that the next generation is equipped with real health skills that enable them to make situational health choices on an informed basis.