Healthy lifestyle in young people: a systematic review

In the last few decades, the concept of healthy lifestyle has been the focus of many investigations. As a phenomenon, it includes studies of individual and collective behaviors related to health. This study aimed to review healthy lifestyle in young people.

The present review was conducted in order to investigate the healthy lifestyle in young people. All articles published in Persian language were examined without any constrains until 2023. Articles were searched in national reliable databases using the keywords "lifestyle", "healthy lifestyle", "healthy lifestyle of youth", "health-oriented lifestyle" alone or in combination. Then the studies that met the inclusion criteria were selected and their findings were analyzed.

In initial search 398 articles were retrieved. After removing duplicate and unrelated articles, finally 18 studies were reviewed. The findings showed that the most attention in the studies was on examining healthy nutrition, physical activity, risky behaviors and drug use, most of which were presented quantitatively. The majority of studies focused on individual performance and explained the problem of healthy lifestyle more through the lens of agency-oriented tradition. Almost all studies have interpreted the low levels of healthy lifestyle among young people by analyzing the behavior of the people themselves and neglected the analysis of structural factors.

It seems to promote a healthy lifestyle among young people more studies on "favorable environments for a healthy lifestyle" considering individual and structural dimensions, are needed. Promoting a healthy lifestyle among young people requires combining practical solutions at the individual and structural levels.