Health promotion is "the process of enabling people to increase control over their health and its determinants, and thereby improve their health", according to the World Health Organization's (WHO) 2005 Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion in a Globalized World.

Preventive healthcare (alternately preventive medicine or prophylaxis) consists of measures taken for disease prevention, as opposed to disease treatment.

Just as health encompasses a variety of physical and mental states, so do disease and disability, which are affected by environmental factors, genetic predisposition, disease agents, and lifestyle choices.

Health, disease, and disability are dynamic processes which begin before individuals realize they are affected.

Disease prevention relies on anticipatory actions that can be categorized as primal, primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention.

In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism.

The word diet often implies the use of specific intake of nutrition for or reasons (with the two often being related).

Although humans are omnivores, each culture and each person holds some food preferences or some food taboos.

This may be due to personal tastes or ethical reasons.

Individual dietary choices may be more or less healthy.

Physical exercise is any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness.

It is performed for various reasons, including increasing growth and development, preventing aging, strengthening muscles and the cardiovascular system, honing athletic skills, weight loss or maintenance, and also enjoyment.

Frequent and regular physical exercise boosts the immune system and helps prevent "diseases of affluence" such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity.

It may also help prevent stress and depression, increase quality of sleep and act as a non-pharmaceutical sleep aid to treat diseases such as insomnia, help promote or maintain positive self-esteem, improve mental health, maintain steady digestion and treat constipation and gas, regulate fertility health, and augment an individual's sex appeal or body image, which has been found to be linked with higher levels of self-esteem.

Childhood obesity is a growing global concern, and physical exercise may help decrease some of the effects of childhood and adult obesity.

Some care providers call exercise the "miracle" or "wonder" drug—alluding to the wide variety of benefits that it can provide for many individuals.

Aside from the health advantages, these benefits may include different social rewards for staying active while enjoying the environment of one’s culture.

Many individuals choose to exercise publicly outdoors where they can congregate in groups, socialize, and appreciate life.