ABSTRACT
This chapter uses the term 'healthy lifestyles' to denote the aspects of health related behaviours and conditions which entail an element of personal action at the individual level. In the field of heart disease, the current orthodoxy of prevention is centred on the need to change daily habits, particularly those involving food, tobacco and exercise. Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is the medically registered cause of about 25 per cent of all deaths in the United Kingdom. CHD morbidity within the British population is extremely widespread. As society's most widespread multi-factorial chronic disease, CHD has attracted intense interest among individuals and institutions involved in preventive medicine movement. Epidemiological and clinical research over several decades has identified dozens of behaviours and conditions associated with the onset of the disease, many relating to personal lifestyle, and many relating to other fields of life. Combining formal and informal, quantitative and qualitative, survey and ethnographic data has been a specific goal of the research project.
