Teaching Lifestyle Medicine to Medical Students by Increasing Self- Awareness Article (Faculty180)

cited authors

  • McGrady, Angele; Brennan, Julie; Riese, Amy; Dowling, Jamie; Lynch, Denis

description

  • Abstract Lifestyle is increasingly recognized as an important factor in chronic illness. Future physicians need education about lifestyle behavior change and best strategies to manage patients. The goal of the current study was to involve medical students in their own behavior change as a way of teaching lifestyle medicine. Twenty-four medical students completed an elective in lifestyle medicine which included general lectures, case discussions and participation in one of three focus groups which they chose based on their own assessment of their personal lifestyle which comprised distress, nutrition and physical activity. The assessments were completed pre-elective, post elective and at three-month follow up. Students demonstrated improvements in distress, nutrition, and physical activity. Significant improvements were observed in consumption of fats (baseline, post elective and follow up) in the whole group. The nutrition focus group sig nificantly decreased fat consumption pre-elective and post-elective. The stress management group significantly reduced perce ived stress pre-elective and follow up and reduced fat consumption pre and post elective. There were no significant changes in physical activity in the whole group or in the activity group. This study illustrates that students own lifestyle can be used as an educational method in lifestyle medicine and students are able to make meaningful changes. Keywords: Lifestyle; Medical education; Nutrition; Stress; Physical activity

publication date

  • 2021

published in

start page

  • 1

end page

  • 6

volume

  • 3