In a world where environmental issues are escalating, health professionals, especially those practicing lifestyle medicine, have a critical role to play in addressing the triple planetary crisis. The recent editorial, signed by 200 health scientific journals, stating that the triple planetary crisis is a global health emergency underscores the urgency of our situation. Healthcare professionals have the duty not only to recognize the seriousness of this situation but also to take active steps towards environmental sustainability. This is a rallying cry for a healthier planet and healthier people.
Understanding the Triple Planetary Crisis
The triple planetary crisis encompasses three interconnected challenges: Climate Change, Biodiversity Loss, and Pollution. These issues are not isolated problems but a trio of threats that endanger both the natural world and human well-being. Climate change leads to extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and various health risks. Biodiversity loss disrupts ecosystems, threatening our access to vital resources, and pollution leads to a wide range of human health problems and is responsible for the rise of many Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs).
The Role of Lifestyle Medicine
Lifestyle medicine offers a holistic approach to well-being, emphasizing the importance of adopting a healthy, environmentally sustainable lifestyle. It’s about preventing diseases, promoting overall health, and recognizing the inextricable link between personal health and the health of our planet. By helping people adopt a healthy and sustainable lifestyle, Lifestyle Medicine Professionals can help societies fight against the urgent human and planetary health deterioration, by affecting all three crises.
1. Lifestyle Medicine for Climate Change
In the fight against climate change, lifestyle medicine is a powerful ally. The adoption of a low-emission, mainly plant-based diet, as promoted by the EAT-Lancet Committee in their Planetary Health Diet, provides a practical and scientifically sound solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Shifting towards plant-based diets significantly reduces an individual’s carbon footprint and curbs emissions associated with livestock farming. Furthermore, by advocating for more physical exercise, lifestyle medicine professionals can help societies reduce emissions associated with transport.
2. Lifestyle Medicine for Biodiversity Loss
Biodiversity loss often accompanies unsustainable dietary choices. Lifestyle medicine can play a pivotal role in promoting diets that consider the well-being of endangered species while addressing another significant factor contributing to biodiversity loss, the extensive use of pesticides and antibiotics in animal agriculture. Transitioning to plant-based diets reduces the demand for overfished species of our seas and oceans and lessens the pressure on fragile ecosystems. Additionally, this shift has the potential to reduce the land needed for animal feed production, allowing for land rewilding. For example, consider the Amazon rainforest, which is frequently cleared for animal feed crops (over 80% of Amazon-produced crops serve as livestock feed). However, by transitioning to plant-based diets, we can redirect this land back to its natural state, nurturing biodiversity conservation.
3. Lifestyle Medicine for Pollution
Pollution poses a great threat to our environment and human health. Lifestyle medicine recognizes the potential of a healthy, plant-based diet to reduce chemical pollution in the environment, and chemical exposure of humans. Traditional animal agriculture is linked to the excessive use of pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, and other harmful chemicals. By adopting a plant-based diet, we reduce the demand for such practices, minimizing the chemical pollution burden on our environment. A plant-based diet causes less chemical pollution than animal-based diets due to the lower use of chemicals in plant-based agriculture. Moreover, plant-based diets drastically reduce human exposure to environmental toxic chemicals, as most of those chemicals bioaccumulate and biomagnify throughout the food chain. The pollution crisis redefines what we knew as a healthy diet till yesterday, as I have explained in another article.
A Call to Action for Health Professionals
Given the interconnected global health emergency that is the triple planetary crisis, health professionals, particularly those in lifestyle medicine, must educate themselves on these vital linkages. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations have raised the alarm, and it is our responsibility to respond. IASIS has been advocating for the integration of Environmental Sciences into Lifestyle Medicine since 2017, which is why I offer a special service for health professionals—a training program in environmental health designed to equip you with the knowledge and tools needed to help your patients/clients reduce their exposure to environmental toxic chemicals and align your practice with environmental sustainability. If you are any kind of health professional (medical doctor, nurse, birth attendant, dietician/nutritionist) do not hesitate to contact me. Together, we can help your clients lead the way towards a healthier, more sustainable future.
