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It is also worth considering briefly a dominant theoretical idea about health that is concerned with its moral nature. Crossley (2003) argues that, increasingly, health has become synonymous with ideas to do with being a good and responsible person. The pursuit of health is therefore seen as something virtuous and highly valued. Lupton and Peterson (1996) refer to this as the ‘imperative of health’. The extent to which this notion is prevalent is indicated by research findings that demonstrate that people prefer to claim that they are healthy (Blaxter, 2010) or at least are trying to be (Cross et al., 2010). This ties in with neo-liberalist notions about individual responsibility. The notion that individuals have a moral responsibility to look after their own health is echoed through many aspects of health promotion and health-service provision. Lawton et al. (2005) highlights the promotion of self-management and self-care in people with type 2 diabetes, for example. The morality of health is strongly linked to ideas of ‘good citizenship’ and the drive to be a fully functioning member of society – one who protects and maintains their own health rather than being a strain on society’s finite resources. In contemporary Western societies this can be seen, for example, in the way that people who are overweight or obese are judged and blamed for their size.

So far we have focused on the way that health is theorized, which has largely drawn on professional discourse about health. The next section of this chapter will explore these ideas in more detail in relation to lay understandings about health.