Working Toward Healthier Habits
There is debate about the best ways to help people achieve goals related to practicing healthier lifestyle habits. What do you think? Is it up to the individual person to try to make changes by being more disciplined? Or should we think that communities will change their policies that will force people to make these changes? How much do you feel that smoking has decreased in the US because of no smoking regulations versus individuals’ just deciding to quit?
The optimal health promotion environment would be one in which regulations and policies support the types of changes that people want to make. To some degree, that is what has occurred with smoking. Individual autonomy, or the right to choose is an important aspect of this debate, whether that be a healthy or unhealthy choice. However, others make the social justice argument that for items that have only negative health consequences, laws should prohibit people from purchasing or using them.
Take time to discuss how you feel about regulations to ban smoking as compared to an issue on the other side such as legalizing drugs.