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Individuals should
be taught practical skills on how to adopt and follow healthy practices,
such as what sort of food to buy and how to prepare meals. People and
communities should also be taught the skills for support measures needed for
such lifestyles. However, providing information is not enough. People's
health-related lifestyles in any community are closely related to the
general lifestyles of the community and to the general beliefs, norms and
social values. Thus, it is often difficult for the individual to make major
changes in lifestyle, if respective changes do not take place in the
community and, more generally, in society as a whole. Therefore, successful
large-scale preventive programmes attempt to change, not so much the
individuals, but the whole community and many of its social and
environmental factors. This involves decisions and actions that make healthy
choices possible and easy. |