ABSTRACT
Changing people’s lifestyles is far from easy. Health knowledge is not enough to change behaviour as people become prisoners to their social and economic environment. Healthy foods are clearly marked and often grouped together to try and win back the custom which has deserted them for health shops. The resources devoted to health education, in most countries, both developed and developing, are tiny, while the resources at the command of the advertisers of products which can be health-damaging are immense. The fallacious repair shop attitude to health services, within which any damaged health organ can be patched up or replaced, breeds complacency. If people were led to recapture their responsibility for their own health, this attitude might change and so might the response of governments. But adverse material circumstances would remain a major cause of unhealthy lifestyles.
