Lifestyle is the collection of attitudes, interests, and behavioural orientations of an individual or group. It includes a person’s basic character as established during early childhood, which governs his or her reactions and behaviour.
Various fields of science have developed different models and theories to analyse the lifestyle construct. However, the concepts and research variables used by these fields of study are often far apart from each other.
A narrative review of the main definitions and conceptualisations of lifestyle in the psychological and sociological fields reveals that the concept is more complex than commonly believed. This is because it has both an internal and external dimension as well as a temporal dimension.
The earliest psychological approaches to lifestyles were influenced by Alfred Adler, who interpreted lifestyles as the framework of guiding values and principles that people develop during their first years of life. These guides govern their behaviour and reactions throughout their lives.
Other psychologists developed a more complex model that was based on the idea that a person’s personality was shaped by his or her interactions with other people, particularly during childhood. This approach led to an analysis of the lifestyle of a person in terms of the personality’s facets and aspects of development, with the aim of finding a way for this to be expressed as a modus vivendi or a lifestyle.
Sociologists also reexamined the notion of lifestyle, starting with Georg Simmel’s formal analysis of lifestyle as processes of individualisation and identification that generate and transform a person’s lifestyle. This approach was renewed by Pierre Bourdieu, who formulated a more complex model in which lifestyles are understood as social practices, linked to the habits and routines of a given society.
Another perspective was developed from the idea that a person’s lifestyle is the result of his or her social position in a particular society. This approach was influenced by the work of Milton Rokeach and Arnold Mitchell, among others, who aimed to identify different lifestyles according to the socioeconomic class in which they belong.
Finally, health psychology has reexamined the notion of lifestyle with the aim of proposing a definition that would allow for combining individual and social dimensions as well as a time span dimension. This is because health, conceived as a bio-psycho-social process, is constructed through a dynamic relationship between the individual and his or her environment throughout the entire life cycle. It is therefore important to understand how lifestyles change and evolve. Taking into account the determinants and factors that influence this process could help us to develop more adequate lifestyle intervention strategies. It may also lead to a better understanding of the impact of lifestyles on health. This in turn, might improve the way we manage our current health promotion strategies.