Academic Lifestyle Medicine and Physician Education

The habits and practices that individuals adopt in their daily lives profoundly impact their quality of life and also their short and long-term health and risk of developing chronic disease. This is the fundamental basis of the rapidly emerging field of lifestyle medicine. Lifestyle medicine has begun to take its place in mainstream academic medicine but more needs to be done. Despite the fact that the benefits of regular physical activity, proper nutrition, weight management, avoidance of risky substances, and connection to other people are strongly supported in the academic literature, many mainstream physicians have been slow to embrace the overall concept. The reluctance to embrace the concept of lifestyle medicine may be the result of inadequate physician education in this overall field. The purpose of the current article is to provide an overview of the robust academic evidence supporting the fundamental principles of lifestyle medicine and offer advice for physicians about how to obtain additional education in this area. We particularly emphasize the need for medical schools and academic physicians to become more knowledgeable and offer instruction in lifestyle medicine.