Historical trends in the use of television in health education

Although health education is a relatively new professional discipline, health educators have actively utilized television for informational and persuasive purposes since its inception as a public mass medium. Informational messages have been developed for classroom and public television, while persuasive messages have been developed for commercial television. With the current health education emphasis on developing and maintaining behaviors conductive to health, the school health educator can blend both informational and persuasive methods to create a more dynamic classroom teaching environment.