Most popular ACLM blog stories in 2023

By Alex Branch, ACLM Director of Communications

This article takes look back at some of our most popular blog stories published in 2023 and the topics they covered.

African amercian woman laying on her stomach looking at a tablet smiling and reading what is on the screen

2023 was an impactful year for lifestyle medicine, and the stories published on the American College of Lifestyle Medicine blog captured many of the developments.

Clinicians shared inspirational stories about how the practice of lifestyle medicine improved their job satisfaction and emphasized the role of lifestyle medicine in reducing health disparities in under-resourced communities. ACLM contributors wrote on a variety of topics, from the importance of making hospital food healthier, to the lifestyle health-related threat to the U.S. military, to how to deliver high-value, whole-person care in current payment models and much more.

Here were the five most popular stories in 2023:

1.Why Get Certified in Lifestyle Medicine? Ask These Four Clinicians

ACLM interviewed four clinicians from different health professions but with one thing in common – the passion to become certified to practice lifestyle medicine. Certification indicates one has mastered the science to apply evidence-based, whole-person, prescriptive lifestyle therapies to prevent, treat and, when used intensively, often reverse chronic health conditions.

2. How Lifestyle Medicine Can Prevent Burnout in Healthcare Professionals

An important research study by ACLM published in the American Journal of Health Promotion highlighted the potential of lifestyle medicine to manage and reduce burnout among healthcare professionals. Of the 482 ACLM members surveyed for the study, 90% of respondents reported that the integration of lifestyle medicine into their medical practice had a positive impact on their professional satisfaction.

3. ACLM Advocacy Priorities in Support of its Members and Lifestyle Medicine

One year after the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, ACLM recapped its advocacy efforts on behalf of membership. ACLM’s priority areas of focus are lifestyle medicine in medical education; reimbursement and quality measures; health equity as it relates to lifestyle-related chronic disease health disparities; and military health for recruits and active-duty personnel.

4. Hope and Healing: Type 2 Diabetes Remission with Lifestyle Medicine

In this blog post ACLM delved into the critical issue of type 2 diabetes, its staggering economic costs, genetic predisposition, racial disparities, and dire complications, such as amputations. It explores how lifestyle medicine offers a beacon of hope and healing for both patients and clinicians.

5. Delivering High-Value, Whole-Person Care in Current Payment Models 

A summary of ACLM’s inaugural Reimbursement Summit highlighted delivery and payment models used by lifestyle medicine clinicians in a variety of care settings across the country to deliver the high-value, whole-person, interdisciplinary care that lifestyle medicine offers. ACLM President-elect Padmaja Patel, MD, FACLM, DipABLM, said “I want us to change our narrative about reimbursement. For too long we have said that lifestyle medicine does not get reimbursed, but that is no longer true.”