A lifestyle is a set of values, attitudes and interests that characterise an individual’s way of living. A wide range of definitions and results have been obtained from different disciplines, including psychology, sociology, anthropology, and economics.
A person’s lifestyle can include the things he or she does every day (such as eating, working, playing, and socialising) and the habits that are formed through these activities. It can also include the way that a person thinks and feels. A lifestyle is sometimes described as the way a person chooses to live his or her life, and it is often influenced by the cultural environment in which the person lives.
Lifestyles are a subject of interest for many people, and they can be found in magazines, television programmes, and other forms of media. They can be glamorous, luxurious, or modest, depending on the type of person whose lifestyle is being presented. Lifestyles can also refer to the type of food a person eats, whether or not it is healthy, and they can include religious, ethical, or ideological beliefs.
Psychological research has investigated the concept of lifestyle, mainly from two perspectives:
The first one identified a lifestyle as an organisation of personality, a system of values, or a pattern of behaviour justified by values, opinions and orientations. These conceptualisations aimed at highlighting the unique psychic imprint that characterises each person, in line with the meaning of the term style in artistic fields. These conceptualisations have the principal limitation of not considering a context, and questions about how values interact and influence behaviour remain unresolved [3,12].
In contrast, the second current defines lifestyle as a socially constructed phenomenon. Georg Simmel and Pierre Bourdieu have formulated formal analyses of this concept, which emphasise the role of the individual’s position within a social hierarchy as a key factor influencing his or her lifestyle. They also stress that the choice of a lifestyle is not an act of individualisation but rather an act of identification, differentiation, and recognition.
A third line of research, primarily in sociology and anthropology, identifies lifestyle as a phenomenon that is defined by the interactions between mental and behavioural components. This view is most closely related to the ideas of Daniel Yankelovich, who considered that the fundamental components of lifestyles are attitudes and interests, and he analysed them from synchronic and diachronic points of view and on the basis of socio-cultural trends. This approach can be applied to the study of health, since it considers that the lifestyles that are most likely to promote healthy habits are those that are based on ethical principles and are oriented towards a long-term vision. This approach is also supported by Bernard Cathelat and others who have compared lifestyles and the behavioural components that are most likely to affect them. This is the perspective that health psychology is currently developing, using a salutogenic framework that links bio-psycho-social well-being with lifestyles and the societal context in which they develop.