About
The Institute of Lifestyle Medicine (ILM) was founded by Spaulding
Rehabilitation Hospital and Harvard Medical School to reduce the prevalence of
lifestyle-related disease and mortality in our society through physician
directed interventions with patients. Led by Edward M. Phillips, MD, one of the
defining voices in the field of lifestyle medicine, the Institute is at the
forefront of a broad-based collaborative effort to transform the practice of
primary care medicine. This critical transformation is motivated by significant
research indicating that modifiable behaviors - especially physical inactivity
and unhealthy eating - are major drivers of disease and mortality. While the
medical profession is generally aware of this, there has yet to be a systematic
and comprehensive effort to incorporate lifestyle medicine into standard
clinical practice.
ILM is working in collaboration with the American Medical Association, the
American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the President's Council on Physical
Fitness and Sports and dozens of other national medical, health, fitness and
wellness organizations on the ACSM's Exercise is Medicine(tm) initiative, which
specifically calls upon every physician to assess every patient's physical
activity program at every visit. ILM has a unique and essential role in this
collaboration: creating the definitive set of tools to enable the evolution of
clinical practice. These tools include a comprehensive textbook for clinicians
(American College of Sports Medicine's Exercise is Medicine(tm): A Clinician's
Guide to the Exercise Prescription co-authored by Dr. Phillips and a professor
of preventive medicine from the Stony Brook University School of Medicine,
Steven Jonas, M.D., M.P.H., also a member of the ILM Advisory Board), a complete
clinical toolkit (The Exercise Prescription Toolkit), and curriculum materials
for undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing medical education programs.
Primary Contact
Edward Phillips