Lifestyle, habitus, and health promotion: Some approaches

Abstract

Healthy lifestyles (LS) are hegemonically interpreted as a set of individual behaviors capable of promoting health, which is understood as an eminently biological phenomenon. The theoretical framework of Health Promotion (HP), however, adds the concept of social determination to the discussions on the relationships between LS and health. Aiming to overcome the model of individual culpability focused on the epidemiological risk approach in the discussions on LS, we retrieved the concept of habitus from the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. This article aims to summarize several approaches that historically permeated the discourses about LS and HP, introducing the concept of habitus as a mediator, which allows for a reflection on the topic from the existing social conditions and the historically constructed individual actions. This reflection is important because it conceptually strengthens HP ideas and promotes comprehensive, inclusive, participatory, and social empowerment actions, as opposed to prescriptive actions focused on disease prevention or control, which still prevail in the health praxis.