A healthy lifestyle is a set of behaviours, attitudes and values that are associated with an overall sense of well-being and satisfaction. Generally, these behaviours are aimed at achieving a balanced level of physical, mental and social activities. They also involve a healthy diet and regular exercise, the avoidance of tobacco and excessive alcohol, and the use of effective stress management techniques. Studies have shown that a lifestyle that includes all of these aspects leads to greater cognitive function and memory recall.
The term lifestyle was first used in the 1930s to describe the way that people live their lives. Since then, it has become a common concept in both the general public and the health professions. A number of different models and theories have been developed to explain the meaning and significance of this construct.
Lifestyle can be defined on an internal, external and temporal basis. The internal dimension defines lifestyle as the set of habits that a person develops over their lifetime, resulting from interactions between themselves and various sociocultural contexts. These models tend to emphasise the notion of personal choice, highlighting that individuals are free to choose the lifestyle that suits them best.
On the other hand, the external dimension focuses on the idea that lifestyle is an expression of one’s status or class in society. Theories that favour this interpretation start with Thorstein Veblen and his emulation concept, which asserts that people adopt specific “schemes of life” and particular patterns of conspicuous consumption depending on a desire for distinction from the social strata they identify as inferior and a desire for emulation of those that they perceive as superior.
In addition, the external interpretation of lifestyle is characterised by the way in which a person’s behaviour and daily practices are related to the values, norms and traditions in their culture. This approach has been further elaborated by Max Weber and Bourdieu, who define lifestyle as a distinctive element of status groups that communicate the prestige of those who belong to them.
The external interpretation of lifestyle is particularly important for the field of health psychology because it allows us to understand how a person’s behaviour is influenced by cultural, economic and environmental factors. Moreover, it is also an essential tool for the development of health promotion interventions. However, to be useful, this definition must be clear and precise, and a comprehensive model of lifestyle must be developed to include both the antecedents and outcomes of these behaviours. In order to achieve this, the authors of this narrative review have proposed a new definition of lifestyle, which takes into account all of these dimensions. This definition could help to create more effective theoretical and explanatory models of lifestyles, which could be the basis for the design of better health promotion programmes.