Healthy Lifestyle Theory

Health lifestyles of most chronic diseases, comprise of contact with the medical professionals in the case of check-ups and preventive care, but the majority of activities take place outside the health care delivery system (2). Thus for management of diabetes primary responsibility rest s on those who suffer from it, and 95% of diabetes care is estimated to be undertaken by the patient. People with diabetes must substantially change everyday habits to manage the disease. Among the lifestyle changes required modifications are (i) following a diet, (ii) self-administering oral diabetes medications and/or insulin, (iii) engaging in physical activity, (iv) performing blood glucose monitoring, and (v) managing daily stressors (3,10). Health lifestyle

Nevertheless, Weber’s concept did not capture the reality in operationalization between life choices and lifestyle in shaping health lifestyle (2). 3 From Weber’s concepts about health lifestyle, sociologists William Cockerham, Pierre Bourdieu, and Weber got a theoretical foundation upon which to deepen our understanding and help us to face with the initial theoretical challenges posed by lifestyle research (11). To achieve a better understanding of lifestyle behaviour researchers advocate the understanding of health lifestyle within social context that shapes norms, values, behaviours rather than individual health lifestyle perspective (12) Thomas Abel, defined health lifestyles as forms of health related behaviours, values, attitudes adapted by groups of individuals from their social, economic and cultural environments (13). This was not so different from Cockerham who defined health lifestyle as collective patterns of health-related behaviour built on choices or agency from options available to people according to their life chances (structure)

Using the concept of Cockerham’s theory on lifestyle behaviour, behaviour adopted by patients in their daily life can be understood. Diabetics’ lifestyle behaviour as anyone else, are the production of the individuals’ choices and social structure’s chances. Maintenance of self-management behaviour is difficult for many diabetic patients because as member of the society, their actions are influenced by different variables including socio- economic status, level of education, living condition, collectivity, gender and race. Those variables influence patients’ view of healthy lifestyle and the outcomes they produce (12). Personal networks and their functioning as well as socio-economic factors represent opportunities and constraints in the life situation and may be considered major situational influences on behaviour (4). People in high income households suffering from diabetes are more prone to have healthy behaviour in managing their illness compared to those from low-income