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But why is it that individuals
are generally implicated, even in health education: it is usually people that are told “watch your diet” or “get plenty of exercise”. It is advantageous to Governments to put the responsibility for
health onto individuals because the government then does not have to address structural
issues , such as housing supply and quality, or unemployment and economic disparities. As
long as individual models of health and disease predominate, governments find genes and
behaviour a convenient way to avoid responsibility for many of the important environmental
factor that influence health: affordable food of good quality, adequate salaries for work
to enable people to have leisure time in which they might make use of exercise
opportunities, controls on the promotion and sale of hazardous products, such as tobacco,
diesel engine vehicles, and contaminated foods. |