How do lifestyle choices affect health, fitness and wellbeing?
Lifestyle choices in diet, activity level, work/rest/sleep balance and recreational drugs, and their positive and negative effects on health and performance.
A focused answer to Edexcel GCSE PE on lifestyle choices: the effects of diet, activity level, the work/rest/sleep balance and recreational drugs (alcohol and nicotine) on health, fitness and wellbeing, including the effects of smoking.
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What this dot point is asking
Edexcel wants you to explain how lifestyle choices, diet, activity level, the work/rest/sleep balance and recreational drugs (alcohol and nicotine), affect health, fitness and wellbeing, with the effects of smoking in particular.
Diet and activity level
Work, rest and sleep balance
Recreational drugs: alcohol and nicotine
Why it matters for performance
These choices add up. A performer who eats well, trains regularly, sleeps enough and avoids smoking and heavy drinking will recover better, perform better and stay healthier. The exam often asks how a specific choice (such as smoking) harms a specific kind of performance (such as endurance), so link the mechanism (less oxygen delivered) to the demand (aerobic energy for a long event).
Positive lifestyle choices and their benefits
The same factors work the other way when the choices are good ones. Regular activity strengthens the heart and lungs, controls weight, and lowers the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, while also lifting mood and reducing stress. A balanced diet fuels training and recovery and keeps weight healthy. Enough sleep (around eight hours for a teenager) lets the body repair muscle, restore energy and consolidate skills learned in training, and it sharpens concentration and reaction time. Avoiding smoking and limiting alcohol keeps the lungs, liver and heart healthy and protects oxygen delivery.
The exam often frames this as the three dimensions of wellbeing: physical (fitness, a healthy weight, low disease risk), emotional (better mood, less stress, more confidence) and social (meeting people, teamwork and belonging through sport). A good lifestyle improves all three at once, which is why it is the foundation of long-term health and performance rather than just a way to train harder.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of Pearson Edexcel exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
Edexcel 20183 marksExplain how two negative effects of smoking could reduce a performer's ability to take part in endurance sport.Show worked answer →
A Component 2 application question. One mark per effect linked to endurance performance.
Award marks for any two of: smoking damages the lungs and airways (causing bronchitis and reducing lung capacity), so less oxygen reaches the blood; carbon monoxide in smoke binds to red blood cells in place of oxygen, so oxygen delivery to the muscles falls; and smoking raises the risk of lung cancer and heart disease. Each reduces the oxygen available for aerobic energy, harming endurance.
The link to reduced oxygen and endurance performance earns the marks.
Edexcel 20214 marksExplain how the work, rest and sleep balance and activity level affect a performer's health, fitness and wellbeing.Show worked answer →
A Component 2 application question, marks for the effects of the rest/sleep balance and activity level.
Award marks for: enough sleep and rest let the body recover and adapt to training (muscle repair, replenished energy), improve concentration and mood, and reduce injury and illness; too little harms recovery, performance and emotional health. A high activity level improves fitness and reduces health risks, while a sedentary level raises them; the balance must allow recovery so the performer does not overtrain.
Strong answers link rest and sleep to recovery and adaptation, and activity level to fitness and health.
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Sources & how we know this
- Pearson Edexcel GCSE (9-1) Physical Education (1PE0) specification — Pearson Edexcel (2016)