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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. |