A renewable resource model of health decision-making: insights to improve health marketing

A primary goal of health marketing is to help people make healthy choices. The problem is that health decision-making is complex, and individuals often make unhealthy decisions even when healthy options are promoted. In this paper, we address this problem by integrating literature in marketing, psychology, economics, medicine, and health to develop a new conceptual model: Health as a Renewable Resource, that can be readily used by marketers to help people manage their health-impacting decision. It is apparent that people view health as, in part, renewable and fungible. Underpinning this, we argue that people have an implicit model of health, analogous to a reservoir. This reservoir can be filled or drained, such that trade-offs in health-impacting decisions can be made over time. The reservoir’s inputs and outputs are controlled by behavioral choices and unconscious processes including biological and environmental mechanisms. The practical and research applications of the model are outlined.