IELTS Writing Task 2: Health topic — questions, vocabulary, band-7 ideas

Health is a frequent IELTS Writing Task 2 theme that rewards specific, balanced reasoning and punishes vague advice like "people should eat well." The short answer for a high band: identify whether the prompt asks about causes, responsibility, prevention, or funding, then argue with concrete mechanisms — a sugar tax, public health campaigns, subsidised gyms. This page gives you the angles, vocabulary, and band-7 thesis sentences. Read it with the Task 2 strategy guide.

Common question angles

• Individual vs state responsibility — Should governments make people healthier, or is health a personal choice? (opinion / discussion)
• Prevention vs treatment — Should money go to preventing illness or to treating it?
• Diet and lifestyle — How can rising obesity be tackled? Should junk food be taxed or banned?
• Healthcare funding — Should healthcare be free for all, or should patients contribute?
• Modern life and stress — Is modern life making people less healthy, mentally and physically?

The weak answer offers lifestyle clichés. The band-7 answer evaluates policy and trade-offs: a sugar tax may reduce consumption but burden the poor; free healthcare improves access but raises taxes.

Vocabulary and collocations you need

• a balanced diet, a sedentary lifestyle, physical activity, mental health
• preventive medicine, public health campaigns, life expectancy, chronic illness
• obesity, a sugar tax, processed food, to raise awareness
• the healthcare system, medical treatment, to put a strain on resources, subsidised
• to lead a healthy lifestyle, to alleviate stress, to reduce the burden on hospitals

Use the grammar checker to fix the uncountable "advice" / "information" slips that creep into health essays, and the explain tool to confirm collocations like "preventive" vs "preventative."

Sample band-7 thesis sentences

• Discussion: "While personal choices clearly drive much of our health, I would argue that governments must take the lead through regulation and education, since individuals rarely have the information or incentives to change alone."
• Opinion: "I firmly believe that funding should be redirected towards prevention, because tackling the causes of illness is both cheaper and more humane than treating its consequences."

Each thesis commits to a position and signals the reasoning, avoiding the empty "both are important" conclusion that caps Task Response.

Avoid the common AZ/RU-speaker mistakes

Health essays often slip on uncountable nouns ("a good health", "healths"), the article before "the government" / "the elderly," and modal verbs of obligation ("must" vs "should" vs "have to"). The common English mistakes by AZ speakers guide lists the corrections, and the how to get band 7 guide ties the four criteria together so your strong ideas are not let down by grammar.