Lifestyle medicine should be core to care, new statement argues

Clinical takeaway: Counsel on specifics: legumes, whole grains, nuts, fruits, and vegetables, with less red or processed meat and sugary drinks; walking or cycling in place of short car trips; seven to nine hours of sleep; mindfulness or cognitive behavioral therapy for stress; group visits and peer support for connection; and less tobacco and alcohol. 

Chronic disease already shapes much of what primary care clinicians treat. The counseling that could slow it competes for time with everything else in the visit. This statement makes the American College of Lifestyle Medicine's case to training programs, health systems, and payers. The committee that wrote it, appointed by the society's board, informed its positions with a literature search and its own reasoning. 

The statement lays out four positions linking lifestyle medicine with personal and planetary health. Among them, ACLM calls for incorporating lifestyle medicine principles into health professional education, clinical care, public health, and policy. The authors say that current curricula often underemphasize nutrition, physical activity counseling, and behavior change, which leaves clinicians underprepared to address the causes of chronic disease. They add that the same behaviors, plant-predominant eating and walking or cycling among them, may also lower greenhouse gas emissions when practiced at scale. 

The statement notes that policy is essential to scale and sustain lifestyle medicine integration. It calls for lifestyle medicine competencies in accreditation standards, board examinations, and licensing requirements, and for reimbursement that rewards prevention, lifestyle interventions, and group-based care. 

"Healthcare must evolve beyond simply managing disease," said Kathy Pollard, MS, research information specialist at the society. "By embracing lifestyle medicine, we have an opportunity to improve health outcomes and restore health while helping safeguard the environmental systems on which future generations depend." 

Source: Pathak N, et al. (2026 Sep 21) Am J Lifestyle Med. Lifestyle Medicine for Personal and Planetary Health: A Position Statement From the American College of Lifestyle Medicine