This thesis examines contradictions in health promotion and workplace health promotion with a particular emphasis on the situation in Wales. The practice of health promotion has become bound up with the ideological bias towards the responsibility of the individual prevalent in current political thinking. This is at the expense of considering the social, cultural, and economic context within which individuals find themselves. This whole approach encourages health to be considered as a commodity which can be purchased by individuals who become consumers of health. Workplace health promotion is practised in a narrow fashion through education and regulation or restriction of lifestyles through workplace policies. A comprehensive approach to promoting employee health must also consider organisational factors which impact on employee health. The thesis contrasts the prevailing economic rationale for workplace health promotion, with a deeper sociological rationale in terms of health promotion acting as a management control strategy. In terms of this sociological rationale, it analyses whether employers focus on employee health in negative terms of exploiting the employee, or in positive terms of seeking to harness the potential of the employee. The widespread application of workplace health promotion in the United Kingdom - where the responsibility for health is placed with the employee - sees labour as being treated as a commodity to be exploited similar to the other factors of production, land and capital. It is argued that it is only when an organisation adopts an holistic approach to workplace health promotion that labour's innate qualities of having a potential which can be harnessed is acknowledged. The feminisation of the workforce is used as an example of how labour has come to be treated as a commodity as opposed to developing its innate potential. It concludes with original case studies which explore the above issues placing them within the context of two particular organisations.