ABSTRACT
Other studies, such as those of Pill and Stott (1982) among working-class mothers of young children in South Wales, Blaxter and Paterson (1982) among two generations of Scottish working-class women, Williams (1983) among elderly people in Scotland, or Blaxter (1985) among the patients of one general medical practice, have found rather similar distinctions. Health can be defined negatively, as the absence of illness, functionally, as the ability to cope with everyday activities, or positively, as fitness and well-being. It has also been noted that in the modern world, health still has a moral dimension. Ill health and moral wrong-doing can be connected, as much among industrialized and urban populations as among primitive societies: one has a duty to be healthy, and unhealthiness implies an element of failure. Health can be seen in terms of will-power, self-discipline and self-control (Blaxter 1983).
