The importance of healthy living and defining lifestyle medicine

Unhealthy lifestyle behaviors are a primary source of the global burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCD) and account for about 63 % of all deaths. Over the past several years, there has been an increased interest in evaluating the benefit of adhering to 'low-risk lifestyle' behaviors and ideal 'cardiovascular health metrics.' Although a healthy lifestyle has repeatedly been shown to improve mortality, the population prevalence of healthy living remains low. Lifestyle medicine is a new discipline that has recently emerged as a systematized approach for management of chronic disease. The practice of lifestyle medicine requires skills and competency in addressing multiple health-risk behaviors and improving self-management. This chapter focuses on the impact of a healthy lifestyle on chronic disease, the rarity of good health, and defining lifestyle medicine as a unique discipline.