ABSTRACT
According to the influential American health economist Victor Fuchs, ‘differences in diet, smoking, exercise, automobile driving and other manifestations of “life-style” have emerged as the major determinants of health’ (Fuchs 2011: 6). In his highly cited book Who Shall Live? Health, Economics and Social Choice, Fuchs (2011) makes it clear that health is, at some level, a choice. He writes: ‘Positive health can be achieved only through intelligent effort on the part of each individual. Absent that effort, health professionals can only insulate the individual from the more catastrophic results of his ignorance, self-indulgence, or lack of motivation’ (Colman cited in Fuchs 2011: 28).
