Perhaps it will come as no surprise to anyone, that I applauded the recent news that GP’s were urged to embed lifestyle medicine into primary care at the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) annual meeting. Something I have been beating the drum about for many years.

Attendee’s heard from speakers such as Dr Callum Leese, from Aberfeldy Medical Practice in Scotland who is leading a project to make his town the healthiest in Scotland using lifestyle medicine. As well as promoting physical activities (Callum also hosts a podcast called ‘The Movement Prescription’) the team at Aberfeldy have also created a food network locally, connecting producers and the social supermarket as well as running cooking classes to improve people’s skills in the kitchen such as fermenting workshops. Their vision is simple but effective and they have four core values to underpin everything they are doing: Move more, Eat well, Find Balance and Connect with others. What an incredible initiative!

In particular Dr Leese called for healthcare practitioners to champion physical activity, referencing the fact that 1/3 of the UK population is physically inactive – perhaps a driver for our rising chronic illness – costing the UK economy £7.2 billion.

With rising costs and dwindling resources GP’s certainly do have a difficult job on their hands and need to look at integrating more lifestyle approaches rather than relying on the rather outdated conventional model of a ‘pill for every ill’.

Integrating lifestyle medicine into GP surgeries will involve training GPs in lifestyle interventions such as nutrition, physical activity, stress management, and sleep hygiene and encouraging regular lifestyle assessments as part of consultations. As Leese said ‘It really takes one minute of asking if the patient has ever considered being more active, and…that being more active might have really significant outcomes for their condition.’

Social prescribing link workers and health coaches are key to helping drive sustainable lifestyle medicine within busy GP surgeries with educational workshops on healthy habits to empower patients to take more proactive roles in their health. Just think, with these additions, GPs could not only more effectively treat conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and obesity but actually prevent them.

What could you do today to increase your physical activity? Standing at your desk, parking further away from school or work, getting off the bus a stop earlier. Even a 10-15 minute walk in your lunchbreak could all have a significant impact.  Remember this has very little to do with living longer and more to do with living better for longer.

Bravo to Dr Callum Leese and for all the other doctors out there pioneering lifestyle medicine which we see as a central part of a broader Int Medicine model.

Dr Elizabeth Thompson