Chapter 1 - The importance of healthy lifestyles in helping achieving wellbeing

Elsevier, Fertility, Pregnancy, and Wellness, 2022, Pages 1-19
Authors: 
ManuelVaquero-Abellan, Francisco Genil Marquez, Pilar Aparicio Martínez

Individual habits, behaviors or conducts have been linked to health and illness since ancient times. A clear example would be the humans’ ability to integrate previously unknown products into our body that were later incorporated as eating habits, such as grains. In the case of grains, they have become the main energy source, unchanged in the last millennium, helping human beings to keep a healthy metabolic balance. However, because of the change in food production and mobility, the healthy metabolic balance has been modified, resulting in diverse diseases, such as cardiometabolic syndromes. In the case of grains, they have become the main energy source, unchanged in the last millennium, helping human beings to keep a healthy metabolic balance. However, because of the change in food production and mobility, the healthy metabolic balance has been modified, resulting in diverse diseases, such as cardiometabolic syndromes. In this chapter, the relationship between a healthy lifestyle and adequate balance has been analyzed, as well as the negative effects on health and wellbeing (for instance, obesity). Based on that, with the progress of time and scientific proof of the risk of unhealthy lifestyles, researchers and governments have promoted healthy lifestyles, basing on lowing the risk of having a chronic disease. This healthy lifestyle should include a familiar and social structure for the promotion and maintenance of positive behavior. In this sense, the main pillar is maternal health since maternal habits have repercussions on the health of the children. An important tool to understand what the latest publications have focused on and the tendency of researchers is the bibliometric study. Moreover, this type of analysis is a complementary tool that allows measuring the quality of the last scientific knowledge and the impact on the health of the population. Bibliometric studies provide a wider perspective of the scientific data since both national and international researchers are studied. From the previous data, it could be concluded that healthy lifestyles may be linked to the decrease of multiple diseases and prevention of risky behaviors from mental health to determine fertility. This topic of the study showed the link between healthy lifestyles related to age, pregnancy, public health, social behavior, and organization and management. In this sense, out of the 15,306 documents found, 1,550 were related to pregnancy, and 867 focused on fertility, reflecting the relationship of the pregnancy with public health, organization, and management or age of the population. Other results also showed a connection between lifestyles and mental health, especially including the quality of life of aged adults and the role of exercise. Finally, another result proved that child welfare is connected to the relation of family and the consumption of substances or unhealthy diets. In general, therefore, it seems that the relationship between healthy lifestyles and wellbeing, especially focused on women and pregnancy, continues growing to understand, determine factors connected to chronic disease, and trying to decrease these. All being said, these findings have significant implications for the understanding of how the future of healthcare may lead to the role of lifestyle in the wellbeing of education and communication with patients.