Physical education and back health: Negotiating instrumental aims and holistic body-work practices

This article argues that physical education has a role to play in facilitating back health. Although back (ill) health is an issue of major concern for Australia current HPE curriculum documents give almost no attention to the issue. A review of the early physical education curriculum in Australia reveals that posture (as a back health discourse) was an important focus. However, by the mid-1980s, it was largely forgotten as the discourses of heart health became dominant. A case is made for the inclusion of back health as an instrumental aim for the PE curriculum and for consideration of more holistic ways of thinking about the body. An example of an alternative practice that is holistic in nature and specifically relevant to the care of the back is presented. The tension inherent in advocating both instrumental aims which focus upon a specific part of the body (the back) and more holistic approaches to the body is also considered