Environments and healthy and lifestyle

Healthy food choices and regular physical activity are major key behaviors that help prevent the premature development of chronic diseases, obesity, and their complications.Findings in recent years have identified environments (physical, sociocultural, economic, and political) as an important factor in promoting healthy lifestyles.Studies on healthy lifestyles have also led to numerous initiatives (e.g., intervention strategies; programs; national campaigns; action plans; policies and government legislation; and financial support from foundations and official organizations) to encourage the adoption of healthy habits, More specifically, the concept of environments favorable to healthy lifestyles (EFHL) has emerged in public health and the related literature during the past decades. This concept is difficult to implement, however, owing to its vague definition and the multiple forms of action it includes. A health-friendly environment does not necessarily prevent sedentary lifestyles or poor food choices.As a result, more studies on EFHL are needed to develop improved initiatives to promote healthy living. The Ottawa Charter was a call for action on health promotion. It initiated a five-fold solution to combat sedentary behavior and unhealthy lifestyles by building healthy public policy, strengthening community action, developing personal skills, creating supportive environments, and reorienting health services. The third point was the main focus of this study. A number of initiatives were subsequently developed in Canada through governmental action plans, which lead to the creation of organizations such as Pace Canada, ParticipACTION, Health Nexus, or the Healthy Living Unit of Health Canada.There have been various types of projects including promotion programs (e.g., Grand défi Pierre Lavoie, World Day for Physical Activity) or more complex intervention strategies (e.g., school or community programs)and although some have been well documented, the influence of environment has received little attention. There are few literature reviews of studies on environmenta perspectives,despite the many actions implemented in this regard. It appears a clearer portrait of the Canadian literature on EFHL is needed to better understand the EFHL concept in Canada, studies and findings relative to EFHL, and impacts and future research locations. The literature shows that a number of models have been employed to organize and understand EFHL-related work. They include the ecological model, which classifies applied health promotion initiatives based on five core principles of health behavior (individual, microsystem, mecrosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem),and the built environment model, which organizes environment in terms of dimensions (transport system, patterns of land use, and urban design) and in 2006 the MSSS targeted environmental influences (“For a common vision of favorable environments”) with the goal of involving stakeholders from many sectors of intervention. In its action plan, the MSSS defined EFHL as “all the physical, sociocultural, political, and economic elements that have a positive influence on diet, physical activity, and body image”.