ABSTRACT
All available empirical studies point to behavioural factors as the link between personal-genetic and environmental factors. The relationship between personal, behavioural and environmental factors just described is dynamic and complex. The genetic-personal and the social-environmental factors usually have the initial determining role, whereas health behaviour works as the mediating factor, which in turn has a strong impact on the health status. Genetic-personal factors describe the internal drivers of health behaviour, social-environmental factors the external drivers. Personal decisions about lifestyle depend on the structural opportunities that a person faces because of their social status, gender and age. A health-related lifestyle can be understood as a standard pattern of individual decisions about personal health behaviour in the given social and physical environment. The social factors constitute inescapable external conditions that impact human beings and can be, just like internal personal factors, only partly influenced by them.
