healthy living, who's responsible?

i just recently logged on to the site only to discover i had two invitations waiting for me from people running similar sites about healthy living and one of the blogs there asked who is responsible for your health, i left a comment and it got me thinking...
who really is responsible for your health?
the most obvious and apparent answer is ofcourse that you are. it is after all your body and therefore your responsibility, but other people can help and make a big difference.
in my comment i touched upon the subject of it being your parents' responsibility when you are at a young age as this is a time in your life where decisions are made for you and not always because they are in your best interests but because it is the most conveniant.
i for instance didn't really lead that healthy a childhood, schooldinners were a lot different to what they probably are now in the 80s and early to mid 90s and we didn't really have a choice in the matter unless we took a lunchbox and again what we eat is left up to our parents, although more often than not when i took a lunchbox it included atleast one piece of fruit.
when i left junior school (ages 6/7 to 11) for the big bad world of secondary school we got a bit more choice in the matter of what we ate, and what we ate was pretty much junkfood (there was also a tuck shop which sold chocolate and crisps and stuff), and while i believe that freedom of choice is important, especially as you're growing up, as nobody really likes to be told what they can and can't eat, which is the main reaslon i hate these adverts trying to drum it into parents to feed their children nothing but wholegrain, omega 3 and "friendly" bacteria, i can kind of see the point in them; they're trying to educate parents as to what is best for their children. but this is wrong, they should be educating the kids so they can make their own minds up.
the topic of educating kids about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle brings me neatly on to my next topic: should schools do more to teach the young how important health is going to be them later on in life? i believe the answer is yes.
i myself am obese, partly due to the period of depression i went into after being diagnosed with epilepsy when i was 17, but i have always been of a "bigger build", or to give it the most effective label: slightly fat.
most of my diet as a kid consisted of food that had been fried or sweet things (whenever my nan would collect me and my sister from school when our parents were working we would get some money to spend as we chose in the nearby shop. this started off as 30p and then became 50p, and you could buy a lot more for 30-50p back then than you can now, depending on your choice you could get a bar of chocolate, packet of crisps and bottle of drink and still have some change left).
anyway, getting back to my point. i believe that schools should do more to educate children on the benefits of health and the disadvantages of being unhealthy.
i left school in 1997 just before my 16th birthday and i hadn't even been given a proper sexual education (but luckily i'd had the internet for quite a few months by then ), letalone one in health.
if i had known from a younger age that stuffing my face with fried food and candy and not getting regular exercise and smoking (which i have never done and never will do) could lead to heart disease, diabetes and a whole range of other bad stuff i'm pretty certain i would worked harder to get myself healthier.
the fact of the matter is that i did not know that diabetes could be caused by obesity until a few years ago when my doctor sent me off for a blood test to test for it after i started showing some symptoms of developing it, luckily i don't have it.
i also didn't know what cholestrol was in relation to heart disease and was pretty ignorant as to the strain i was putting on my body by not taking care of it. although this could partly be due to a kind of catch 22 situation in which self-loathing for the way i looked led to me not caring about the way i treated myself which lead to depression which lead to comfort eating, and let me tell you that when you're comfort eating fruit, salad and mineral water aren't exactly the first items in the house you reach for, and we always used to have loads of junk in the house because my parents, especially my mum would buy it and still does, even though she seems to constantly be on diets, whenever i mention to her that she shouldn't buy it she just says to me "well, you don't have to eat it". i know this. you know this. but it being there doesn't exactly help me or give me any incentive not to eat it (i compare this to somebody that's trying to quit smoking suddenly finding themselves being surrounded by lots of other people smoking; it doesn't make it impossible, but it doesn't make it any easier either), i'll only eat what's available to me and due to the fact i don't really like to leave the house i'm not exactly going out and buying the stuff myself. not that i'm trying to dump the blame completely on my parents or anything, i just feel there is a lot other people can do to help you help yourself.
so, taking all that into consideration the question becomes a lot harder to answer.
i really do try my best to be healthy but it really is difficult after all those years of just neglecting my body, i'm not blaming my lack of education or upbringing completely as there are other people out there from my generation who are slim and healthy, but i really do struggle to lose weight. although after finding out i have an underactive thyroid sometime last year and being on medication to rectify the problem it is becoming a bit easier, i also take Xenical (or Orlistat to give it it's proper name) to help reduce the amount of fat my body absorbs from food, and if you know anything about this certain drug you'll know that it discourages you from eating anything high in fat...
but after all this i suppose at the end of the day it's your body and your decision, and whether you're educated or not you're going to do what you like. just don't be surprised if one day your weight (in stones) is equal or greater to your age (mine is lower thankfully) in years and you regret not doing something about it sooner.
-c