ABSTRACT
Lifestyle has become a popular concept, not just in the social and health sciences, but in Western societies at large. In market economies lifestyle signifies important consumer groups and in politics, lifestyle is frequently referred to in rhetorics that emphasise individual over social responsibility. In the social sciences the lifestyle approach is traditionally used as a secondary concept in the debate on the relative importance of social conditions and behaviours for social inequalities. More recently in sociology, the term lifestyle is prominently applied to describe new forms of social differentiation under post-modern or high modernity conditions (e.g. Giddens 1991, Featherstone 1991). And, finally, lifestyle as an ‘in vogue’ term in the health sciences, is unfortunately often misused either as an empty phrase applied to sell the research community old ideas under a new heading or as a hotchpotch category for almost everything that somehow has to do with social behaviour and health.
