ABSTRACT
In the public health field, lifestyle has been conceptualized, operationalized and defined in two contrasting ways. The lifestyle model also offers little by way of understanding how lifestyles are developed and maintained. Informed by a sociological understanding of human action, alternative perspective focuses on the interplay between social circumstances and behaviours, moving beyond individual lifestyle risk factors. Health and lifestyle surveys are routinely used to chart lifestyle patterns in populations and population sub-groups. The widely referred to Ottawa Charter, 1986, argued that the aim of health promotion is to 'make the healthy choice the easy choice' through policies that remove obstacles to healthy living. In England more recently, a reformulation of this idea has been expressed in a number of government documents in which healthy lifestyles are discussed alongside notions of personal responsibility and individual free choice, with a more limited role for the state beyond providing health information.
