Lifelong learning is promoted as a means to solve a range of problems in contemporary society, with the aim of Sweden being the most knowledge intense society in the globalised world. In order to realise such society, citizens need to be active, employed and competitive on the labour market. (bill. 2001/02:1). A central topic emerging the last decade, construed as central in order for Sweden to be in the forefront in the world, is health. Citizens need to become and stay healthy. This paper directs interest at how such discourse on learning and health emerge and is shaped in current policy making on education and public health. What healthy citizen is being shaped, with what capabilities and how is such a citizens being shaped and fostered?

The paper draws on a poststructural discourse analysis, inspired by the work of Michel Foucault (1991, 2003, 2006) and his concepts governmentality and technologies of the self. In such perspective, power and governing are practices that shapes, leads and influence the way people behave and act. A governmentality perspective makes visible in what ways, and with what techniques, such shaping plays out, constructing a self-regulating citizen.

Analysing green and white papers on learning and public health, we illustrate what healthy subject is being shaped and fostered, and through what techniques. By doing so, we contribute to existing governmentality analyses, which only, to a limited extent, has focused on the intersection of learning and health.