The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) and United States Space Force (USSF) have announced an innovative training partnership to enhance Space Force service members’ health and performance by providing the USSF Guardian Resilience Team (GRT) with evidence-based lifestyle medicine education, training and certification.
The agreement marks the first enterprise-level comprehensive lifestyle medicine training program initiative across the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). The first new branch of the armed services since 1947, the Space Force was formed in 2019 to address the national security imperative in space and today has more than 14,000 military and civilian Guardians.
Through the agreement, ACLM will provide lifestyle medicine education, training and certification to the Space Force GRT in support of Holistic Health Approach to educate, assess and train Guardians on physical and mental fitness using science-based information and techniques. The DOD is committed to reducing the U.S. chronic disease burden on warfighter readiness.
Lifestyle medicine is a fast-growing medical specialty that uses therapeutic lifestyle interventions as a primary modality to treat chronic conditions including, but not limited to, cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. ACLM offers the most extensive and expanding catalog of expert-led and -created lifestyle medicine courses and curricular resources across the medical education spectrum.
“Holistic Health Approach is the public health and primary prevention capacity for the United States Space Force,” said USSF Holistic Health Approach Lead Christine E. Heit, MA. “To that end, it is important that all of our Guardian Resilience Teams (GRT) receive all of the requisite training and education so they can teach Guardians the skills, knowledge, and abilities needed to promote short- and long-term health outcomes. Partnering with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine enables us to not only meet our goal, but develop a partnership focused on positive outcomes of our service members."
Lifestyle medicine aligns with the Space Force’s GRT goal of developing a holistic health strategy for active service members. Lifestyle medicine-certified clinicians are trained to apply evidence-based, whole-person, prescriptive lifestyle change to treat and, when used intensively, often reverse lifestyle-related chronic diseases. Applying the six pillars of lifestyle medicine—a whole-food, plant-predominant eating pattern, physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, positive social connections, and avoidance of risky substances—also provides effective prevention for these conditions.
“The pandemic of lifestyle-related chronic disease impacts all aspects of our nation, including the readiness and performance of the great military that protects us,” said ACLM President Padmaja Patel, MD, DipABLM, FACLM. “ACLM is proud to partner with the U.S. Space Force to ensure that the brave men and women who serve our country receive health care that provides the health and healing they deserve. Lifestyle medicine can help deliver exactly that.”
The partnership will position all eligible Space Force GRT members on the pathway to lifestyle medicine certification, completing the prerequisites and sitting for the certification exam in 2025. Since the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine started certification in 2017, almost 6,700 physicians and health professionals have become certified in lifestyle medicine.
“We have seen incredible progress with the initial adoption of lifestyle medicine within the military, yet we have a long way to go to ensure it is the standard of care for all warfighters,” said ACLM Senior Advisor for Military and Veterans Affairs Regan Stiegmann, DO, MPH, DipABLM, FACLM. “The United States Air Force and USSF have deployed a number of lifestyle medicine initiatives efforts across their branches, and we now need additional military leaders to help scale these programs to all service members who deserve a lifestyle medicine-centric approach to their health and warfighter readiness.”
The U.S. chronic disease crisis has been identified as a threat to national security. A 2022 Pentagon study found that 77 percent of young Americans wouldn’t qualify for military service without a waiver because of being overweight, having mental or physical health problems or prior history of drug use. The breadth of lifestyle and performance medicine practice has grown steadily in recent years throughout all military branches.
“Health and human performance are essential to the success of every Guardian, and the USSF,” said Director of the Air Force Medical Group Corps Colonel Valerie J. Castle, DO, MPH. “In alignment with the USSF’s Holistic Health Approach, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine will teach and train Guardians to implement healthy behaviors that will enhance performance, reduce disease, and improve lifelong health outcomes. This is truly a win-win partnership!”
About ACLM®
Serving as a transformation catalyst, disruptor of the status quo, and a galvanized force for change, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine is the nation’s medical professional society advancing the field of lifestyle medicine as the foundation of a redesigned, value-based and equitable healthcare delivery system, essential to achieving the Quintuple Aim and whole person health. ACLM represents, advocates for, trains, certifies, and equips its members to identify and eradicate the root cause of chronic disease by optimizing modifiable risk factors. ACLM is filling the gaping void of lifestyle medicine—including food as medicine—in medical education, doing so across the entire medical education continuum, while also advancing research, clinical practice and reimbursement strategies. Adding years to lives and life to years, while reining in the alarming, unsustainable trajectory of healthcare spending, is what lifestyle medicine delivers.