Behavioral Lifestyles

A person’s lifestyle is a combination of how their wealth, social class, and other social status’ lead to how they live their day to day life. Therefore, health lifestyles are behavioral patterns based on an individual's choices regarding health in the scope of what’s realistic and possible for their life; it also includes the individual's mindset of what health entails for them personally.

Developing a positive health lifestyle early and during adolescence is important because it shapes an individual's life in the future. As a child, there is little to no agency in determining a health lifestyle for oneself, as it is most likely shaped by a mix of the environment and the child’s parents or guardians. However, even though as an adult, one has more control over his or her own health lifestyle, research has proven that childhood behaviors have a high influence in the choices an adult makes in the future, showing that healthy behaviors must be enforced from an early age.

Furthermore, it’s also proven that through healthy behaviors, that is, healthy diets, adequate physical exercise, taking care of one’s mental health, and so on and so forth, aspects such as self-esteem and mood can be improved. In fact, there is a lot of research regarding the correlation between health and happiness— in one study, where around 40 studies about physical health and mood were analyzed, there was a significant bulk of data proving that staying physically active boosts mood, productivity, and self-esteem.

All in all, it’s important to understand that most aspects of our lives are connected— health, lifetyles, socioeconomic factors, etc. all have the potential to impact each other, which is why things that are in our control, especially health lifestyles, are so important to develop, because it can shape the rest of our life.