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Review
. 2020 Apr 27;14(5):474-482.
doi: 10.1177/1559827620913272. eCollection 2020 Sep-Oct.

Laying an Early Foundation: Lifestyle Medicine Pre-Professional Education (LMPP) Member Interest Group

Gia Merlo  1 , Michelle Tollefson  2 , Marie Dacey  3 , Thomas Lenz  4 , Mary Luchsinger  5 , Dennis Muscato  6 , Elizabeth Pegg Frates  7
Affiliations
Review

Laying an Early Foundation: Lifestyle Medicine Pre-Professional Education (LMPP) Member Interest Group

Gia Merlo et al. Am J Lifestyle Med. .

Abstract

Just as lifestyle medicine is the necessary foundation for true health care reform, lifestyle medicine competencies should be the foundation for health education. Although lifestyle medicine education may benefit a health professional at any stage in their education or career, evidence-based undergraduate lifestyle medicine education for future health professionals shifts the perspective of health and health care delivery. Educating health preprofessionals in associate, bachelor's, master's, and other preprofessional healthcare training programs is of paramount importance due to the interdisciplinary nature of lifestyle medicine. To accomplish this, American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) members can work collaboratively through committees, projects, and working groups-becoming leadership champions of change. An ACLM Pre-Professional Member Interest Group (LMPP) was created in 2018. LMPP has been working to build a national collaborative effort to amass, create, and distribute resources for educators in this pre-professional arena. Educating college students planning to become professionals outside the medical sphere, for example, lawyers, business people, artists, and engineers, will also benefit the field by introducing the power of nutrition, exercise, sleep, social connection, and stress resiliency during this formative state of career development. Pre-professional educational programs provide learners the opportunity to personally experience the power of lifestyle medicine.

Keywords: culinary; curriculum; lifestyle medicine education; pre-professional education; premedical.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The mountain of target learners for lifestyle medicine educational initiatives.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Mission, goals, and objectives of ACLM’s Lifestyle Medicine Pre-Professional Education Member Interest Group. ACLM, American College of Lifestyle Medicine.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Resources for American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) members.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Champions of Change in Lifestyle Medicine Pre-Professional Education.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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