Towards Long, Healthy and Happy Life: Essential Lifestyle Paths

Lifestyle can broadly be defined as the typical way individuals and groups live.¹ This includes their habits, diet, occupation, values, attitudes, practices, physical activities, how stressful situations are managed, relationships, sleep pattern, use of harmful substances, social and environmental situations that the individual is exposed to.²

It has been shown that there is association between lifestyle and health of an individual.³ It was predicted by the World Health Organization in 2002, that by the year 2020; two-thirds of all diseases in the world would have been caused by lifestyle choices we make.⁴ So many health challenges today such as;

• Diabetes mellitus
• Hypertension
• Coronary heart disease
• Obesity/Overweight  
• Different forms of cancers
• Substance abuse hazards,
• are directly linked to lifestyle choices.^5,6

This was not the case in the past, especially before 1939 when Communicable diseases were a lot more prevalent than non-communicable diseases.⁷ Non-communicable diseases are now the leading cause of death, accounting for up to 74% of deaths globally.^8,9

Incidentally, the prevalence of non-communicable diseases is rising more in low- and middle-income countries; as a result of these countries adopting unhealthy lifestyles that were observed more in the past, among people in developed countries. Such lifestyles include;

• Consumption of processed meal rich in saturated fat
• Sedentary lifestyle
• Cigarette smoking
• Excessive alcohol consumption
• Substance abuse.

The benefits of healthy lifestyle choices are indeed immense, including reduction of the risk of dementia; as stated by the World Health Organization.¹⁰

World Health Organization also stated that, healthy aging is “the process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables wellbeing in older age”. Included in functional ability are capability to;¹¹

• Be mobile
• Meet one’s basic needs
• Contribute to society
• Learn, grow, and make decisions; and
• Build and maintain relationships

In a nutshell, the essential lifestyle paths to long, healthy and happy life are;

• Good Nutrition
• Adequate Physical Activity
• Avoidance of Harmful Substances
• Avoidance of Irrational use of Medication and Drug Abuse
• Scheduled Health Status Check
• Coping with Stress
• Sufficient and good quality sleep
• Healthy Relationships and Social Connections
• Deliberately Staying Off Risky Habits, Behaviours and Practices
• Working towards safety in the home
• Working towards safety in the workplace

REFERENCES

1. Robinson M. and Davidson G. (1999). Chambers 21st Century Dictionary. Chambers Harrap Ltd, Edinburgh
2. Midland Health. https://www.midlandhealth.org/lifestyle-medicine-center/n6-pillars-of-lifestyle-medicine  (accessed, 06/07/2023)
3. Wingard D.L., Backman L.F. and Brand R.J. (1982). A multivarihate analysis of health related practices: a nine year mortality follow-up of the Alameda county study. Am J Epidemiol, 116(5), 765-775
4. Chopra M, Galbraith S, Danton-Hill I. A global response to a global problem: the epidemic of overnutrition. Bull World Health Organization 2002; 80: 952 – 8
5. Park K., (2013). Parks Textbook of Preventive and Social Medicine. 22nd Edition. M/S Banarsidas Bhanot, Japalpur, India
6. Lucas A.O. and Gilles H.M. (2003). Short Textbook of Public Health Medicine for the Tropics. International Students Edition, 4th Edition, ARNOLD, London
7. World Health Organization (2003). The World Health Report: Today’s challenges. http://www,who.int/whr/2003/ en
8. World Health Organization (2013). A global Brief on Hypertension silent killer. Global public health crisis, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland.
9. https://www.who.int/health-topics/noncommunicable-diseases (accessed, 06/07/2023)
10. https://www.who.int/news/item/14-05-2019-adopting-a-healthy-lifestyle-helps-reduce-the-risk-of-dementia (accessed, 06/07/2023)

1. https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/healthy-ageing-and-functional-ability (accessed, 06/07/2023)