Research Project: The Sociology of a Healthy Lifestyle.

Essay by congeeCollege, Undergraduate November 2005

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It seems that living a healthy lifestyle is the new rising trend of the 21st century. From the countless varieties of health product we can find lining our grocer's shelves, to all these descriptive ads we see everywhere we go, evidence of a growing demand for health related products and services is apparent. Whether it is organic food, diet pills, fitness centers, or any other of a seemingly endless number of possibilities, businesses would not turn out such products or services in the absence of an intersecting demand by consumers. This can clearly demonstrate that consumers are taking a more responsible role in the selection of their lifestyle.

In our study, we explored the consumer's behavior towards the three most common methods that promote a healthy lifestyle - diet, exercise and medication. Under the "Diet" section, we discussed issues in relation with the two popular groups of diets, vegans and Atkins.

Then, we went into the sociology behind why people join fitness and health clubs. Finally, we looked into the implications and impact of medicine on our new definition of a healthy lifestyle.

We concluded that consumers have taken on a new meaning of a healthy lifestyle with less emphasis on cutting back and more emphasis on taking positive steps to create a healthy, balanced lifestyle. There are numbers of trends that influence today's meaning of healthy lifestyle. They are advancement of technology, aging world population, time shortage, increasing women in the workplace, and other demographic trends. More importantly, we found that advertising plays a major role in appealing to individuals, in making people see the ideal person that they want to be, and what is accepted by society. Throughout our study, many consumer behavior models and theories have been identified. Some of these models and theories include the motivation...