LHI Guiding Principals
Everything is interconnected. We are both whole and part, collective and individual. We are part of, and interact with a greater organism we call our ecosystem. Human health and well-being is inseparable from environmental health and sustainability, therefore dependent on our stewardship of the planet.
In the same way that health is affected by our environment, the cells within our bodies sometimes fail to thrive as a result of our actions (or inactions). Most illness and disease is incurred this way. It is an inescapable truth that when poor health results from lifestyle or environmental factors, appropriate management and a return to health, can be found by modifying those factors.
Our bodies will naturally tend towards health (homeostasis) if we allow them to. A comprehensive lifestyle change program is one way of achieving this, providing structure and support to change long-standing habits, or to address environmental or socioeconomic influences. By ‘lifestyle’, we mean the whole person; physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual; our health behaviors, environment and circumstances.
Lifestyle change starts with empowerment and enhancing self-efficacy to take charge of and improve our own health.
In keeping with our ‘everything is interconnected’ philosophy, the Lifestyle Medicine Foundation is not only concerned with health and well-being, but also ecology, environmental sustainability, social justice, health equity and responsibility, whether it be at a personal, community, corporate or government level.