ABSTRACT
The decision to write a text on lifestyle psychology refl ects an appreciation of the importance of the government and policy makers’ use of the term lifestyle to refer to diseases where behaviour plays a part in the aetiology of the condition. In a speech in 2006, the then prime minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair, called for ‘lifestyle change’ to relieve the pressure on the National Health Service (BBC News 2006). The prime minister suggested that ‘failure to address bad lifestyles was putting an “increasing strain” on the health service’. The centrality of the message, the role of lifestyle in health, and the role of psychology in promoting and improving lifestyle will form the focus of this text.
