Lifestyle Medicine.
What is it?
According to the American College of Lifestyle Medicine: “Lifestyle medicine is the evidence-based practice of helping individuals and families adopt and sustain healthy behaviors that affect health and quality of life. Examples of target patient behaviors include, but are not limited to, eliminating tobacco use, improving diet, increasing physical activity, and moderating alcohol consumption.”
Why lifestyle medicine?
Healthy living has been shown by an overwhelming body of scientific evidence to be one of the most effective means to halt the epidemic of chronic diseases.
The focus areas of lifestyle medicine
There are 7 main focus areas of lifestyle medicine:
Healthy whole foods plant-based nutrition
Regular physical activity
Adequate rest
Stress management
Strong social/family connections
Abstinence from harmful substances such as tobacco, recreational drugs and alcohol
Faith & Purpose
Why lifestyle medicine for Seventh-day Adventists?
While many consider lifestyle medicine an emerging revolutionary field in modern medicine, Adventists have in fact been promoting the principles of lifestyle medicine since the mid-1800’s. Lifestyle medicine’s focus on lifestyle change to prevent and treat disease is aligned with Adventists’ understanding of health as revealed to God through Ellen G White.
Seventh-day Adventists exist to share the everlasting gospel in the context of the Three Angels’ messages to all the world in this generation. Ministering to the sick through lifestyle medicine and natural therapies is the most effective way to demonstrate the love of God and to share the Three Angels.
LiM Institute trains Adventists to effectively use lifestyle medicine to witness to their family, peers and colleagues.