Healthy lifestyle choices 'not easy to make'

Healthy lifestyle choices 'not easy to make'

The urge to take the easy route and adopt an unhealthy lifestyle should be resisted, despite the abundance of temptations, an expert has said.

According to Sui Baic, lecturer in nutrition and public health at the University of Bristol, it is harder for people in modern society to make the right lifestyle decisions.

"Making healthy choices aren't the easy choices in our environment," she said.

And she cited the constant "access to cheap fast food and the difficulty with being able to access places to do exercise" as the reason behind this.

Many of the most common ways of appealing to people to engage in more active lifestyles have proven to be ineffective, according to Ms Baic, and she said a new approach was needed.

"We've tried all the traditional ways, like giving information, so we obviously need to look at other approaches to changing behaviour and I think what needs to be done is some research to see which incentives do work," she said.

According to a study carried out at Queen's University Belfast, women who eat a healthy diet and reduce their alcohol intake are less likely to develop breast cancer.