Increasing attention is being paid to the non-health care influences on population health status. Policy recommendations emerging from this interest have tended to focus on providing equal opportunities to attain good health. In this sense policies have tended to be ‘enabling’ with little attention paid to the incentives facing individuals to adopt the healthy behavioural patterns. In this paper we develop a model of individual behaviour based on standard economic theory. First order conditions are derived for the optimal level of participation in health-related activities. Particular attention is focused on the impacts of behavioural patterns on future health and the consequences for the individual well-being. The literature of other behavioural sciences is drawn upon the ability of the model to explain and predict the individual behaviour. The predictions are found to be consistent with observations of individual behaviour reported in the literature. The policy implications of the model are discussed. Attention is drawn to the need to understand the health-related behaviour of the victims of poor health as opposed to blaming them for not responding to opportunities to behave in more ways conducive to health. Otherwise well-intentioned policies aimed at reducing inequalities in health risk being counterproductive. If policy makers are interested in changing individual behaviour then it is essential that policies are designed which make such behavioural change in the best interests of the individuals concerned.
