RISIKOADFÆRD OG DET GODE LIV: Spørgsmål til en livsstil med øl, cigaretter og mangel på motion

Resumé

This pilot study looks into the question of why some people continue a lifestyle

of risk behaviour, knowing full well that this might cause them illness in the future.

Risk behaviour in this study was defined by not meeting the recommendations

from the Danish National Board of Health: Not to smoke, to keep a BMI

lower than 25, to drink less than 14 (women) or 21 (men) standard drinks per

week and to be physically active at least half an hour each day. Each interviewee

failed to meet at least two of these recommendations and did not have plans to

change his or her lifestyle. The aim of this study was to qualitatively investigate

how four citizens from West Copenhagen, with high risk behaviour, regarded

the concepts of health, illness and risk; the study also addresses the factors that

would increase their motivation for lifestyle change. This study showed that the

informants’ attitudes to risk behaviour were negotiated, created and maintained

around the following themes which are part of a practical rationalism: “future”,

“probability”, “it happens to others” and “luck”. The threat of illness caused by

risk behaviour was expected to be the primary motivating factor for lifestyle

change. The informants with high-risk behaviour had a short-term perspective

that dominated their everyday lives. They didn’t expect to fall ill due to their risk

behaviour, but if they did, they considered the disease to be the primary motivating

factor for lifestyle change.