How do lifestyle choices cause disease, and how does physical activity reduce the risk?
Lifestyle and its effect on health: the risks of a sedentary lifestyle, smoking, excess alcohol and poor diet, the lifestyle diseases linked to them, and how regular physical activity reduces the risk of these conditions.
A focused CCEA AS Sports Science answer on lifestyle and disease, covering the health risks of a sedentary lifestyle, smoking, alcohol and poor diet, the lifestyle diseases linked to them, and how regular physical activity reduces the risk.
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What this dot point is asking
CCEA wants you to explain how lifestyle choices affect health, the diseases linked to a poor lifestyle, and how regular physical activity reduces the risk of these conditions. Lifestyle diseases are conditions strongly influenced by how we live, and physical activity is one of the most powerful ways to prevent them.
Lifestyle risk factors
These are described as lifestyle factors because they are largely within a person's control, unlike fixed risk factors such as age or family history. The active leisure industry exists in part to reduce one of them, inactivity, across the population.
The lifestyle diseases
The mechanism is clearest for coronary heart disease: inactivity and a poor diet lead to weight gain and raised blood cholesterol, which is deposited in the artery walls (atherosclerosis), narrowing them and reducing blood flow to the heart. This can cause angina and, if a coronary artery is blocked, a heart attack. Type 2 diabetes develops when cells become resistant to insulin, often linked to obesity, so blood glucose stays high.
How physical activity reduces the risk
Regular physical activity reduces the risk of these diseases through several linked mechanisms. It helps maintain a healthy body composition by raising energy expenditure, which lowers the risk of obesity. It lowers resting blood pressure and improves the balance of blood cholesterol, slowing atherosclerosis. It improves insulin sensitivity, helping control blood glucose and reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes. It strengthens the heart and circulation, so the cardiovascular system works more efficiently. It also supports mental wellbeing, reducing stress, which itself contributes to ill health.
Examples in context
Example 1. The combined effect of risk factors. A person who is inactive, smokes and eats a poor diet faces a far higher risk of coronary heart disease than someone with any one factor alone, because the effects combine: smoking damages the artery lining, a poor diet raises cholesterol, and inactivity raises blood pressure and weight. This is why public-health advice tackles several factors together, and why increasing physical activity is promoted alongside stopping smoking and improving diet.
Example 2. Activity and bone health. Weight-bearing physical activity, such as running or resistance training, stimulates the bones to maintain their density, reducing the risk of osteoporosis later in life. A sedentary lifestyle, by contrast, allows bone density to decline. This shows that the protective effect of activity reaches beyond the heart and metabolism to the skeleton, broadening the case for an active lifestyle.
Try this
Q1. Name three lifestyle risk factors for ill health. [3 marks]
- Cue. A sedentary lifestyle, smoking, excess alcohol, a poor diet (any three).
Q2. Explain one way regular physical activity reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes. [2 marks]
- Cue. It improves the cells' sensitivity to insulin and helps control body weight, so blood glucose is better regulated.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of CCEA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
CCEA AS 20196 marksExplain how a sedentary lifestyle and a poor diet can increase the risk of coronary heart disease, and how regular exercise reduces that risk.Show worked answer →
Build the answer as a chain of cause and effect, then reverse it for exercise.
A sedentary lifestyle and a poor diet (high in saturated fat and sugar) lead to a positive energy balance and weight gain, raising the levels of cholesterol in the blood. Cholesterol can be deposited in the walls of the arteries (atherosclerosis), narrowing them and reducing blood flow. Narrowed coronary arteries restrict oxygen to the heart muscle, which can cause angina and, if a vessel becomes blocked, a heart attack. High blood pressure, made worse by inactivity, adds further strain.
Regular exercise reduces this risk: it helps maintain a healthy body composition, lowers resting blood pressure, improves the balance of blood cholesterol, and strengthens the heart so it works more efficiently. Together these slow or prevent the narrowing of the arteries.
Markers reward the cause-and-effect chain to coronary heart disease and at least two clear ways exercise lowers the risk.
CCEA AS 20214 marksName two lifestyle diseases linked to inactivity and explain how physical activity reduces the risk of one of them.Show worked answer →
Name two conditions, then develop one.
Two lifestyle diseases linked to inactivity are coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure or osteoporosis (any two).
Developing type 2 diabetes: in type 2 diabetes the body's cells become less responsive to insulin, so blood glucose stays high. Regular physical activity improves the sensitivity of cells to insulin and helps control body weight, both of which help keep blood glucose within a healthy range and so reduce the risk of developing the condition.
Markers reward two correctly named conditions and a clear mechanism for how activity lowers the risk of the chosen one.
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