A lifestyle is a set of habits that influence people’s physical and mental health. It includes dietary choices, exercise routines, work habits and social relations. It also incorporates the way people use leisure time, such as hobbies, sports and entertainment. People’s lifestyles vary greatly between cultures and within individual countries. There is no unified definition of a healthy lifestyle, but several theories and studies suggest that certain aspects are more important than others in terms of health.
The concept of a lifestyle has a long history in the psychological and sociological fields. In psychology, Alfred Adler described a person’s lifestyle as the framework of guiding values and principles that determine their behaviour. In a similar vein, Milton Rokeach’s work on personality analysis and Arnold Mitchell’s VALS research interpreted lifestyle as a system of values and attitudes organised hierarchically. These studies identified models of lifestyles that correspond to various population sectors.
In sociology, the term was used in a more collective sense, reflecting the culture of a group and the values it upheld. Max Weber emphasised that the characteristics of a status group were determined by its lifestyle, which identified and differentiated members. Moreover, he viewed lifestyles as a product of the structure of social relations and the economy.
More recent literature defines lifestyles as a pattern of behavioural choices and the factors that influence them. These definitions tend to focus on the behavioural component of the concept and neglect its psychosocial, identity and life span dimensions.
Psychologist Michael Harris uses the term ‘lifestyle’ in a more holistic sense, as a ‘set of patterns of behavioural responses to everyday situations and their consequences’. He argues that a person’s lifestyle is influenced by antecedents such as the environment and their social interactions, and is modified by their own personal values, beliefs and needs.
Other scholars have defined a lifestyle as the daily habits that a person adopts and which define their identity. These include work, recreation, family, eating, sleeping and other activities. They are determined by a number of factors, including the age and cultural background of the person.
The main objective of this paper is to reexamine the main definitions of lifestyle in the psychological and sociological fields and analyse them from three perspectives: internal, external and temporal. This reexamination enables us to identify the main components that characterise the concept of lifestyle, which is useful for future research in this area. The aim of this paper is to present a new model of lifestyle in the context of critical health psychology. This model is based on an ecological approach, taking into account the bio-psycho-social wellbeing of individuals in their environments. It is therefore relevant for health professionals.