“Three Reductions, Three Healthy Conditions” Starts with Me

On September 15, 2023, the Beijing National Healthy Lifestyle Month promotion event was held at the Juyongguan Great Wall. The event is themed “Three Reduction, Three Healthy Conditions, Starting with Me”, hosted by the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, and organized by the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control and the Changping District Health Commission. More than 100 representatives, including staff from the city’s 17 district centers for disease prevention and control and health lifestyle guidance instructors, participated in the event.

The China Healthy Lifestyle for All initiative, launched at the national level in 2007, is the first nationwide program aimed at preventing and controlling chronic diseases and advocating healthy lifestyles for the entire population. Its goal is to mobilize the people of the whole country to pay attention to and disseminate health knowledge, raise health awareness, and actively participate in the initiative. Since its inception, the China Healthy Lifestyle for All initiative has gone through two phases. The first phase, from 2007 to 2015, was characterized by the slogan “Healthy One Two One” and the advocacy of a “balanced diet and exercise”. The second phase, which focuses on “Three Reductions, Three Healthy Conditions” (reducing salt, oil, and sugar, promoting healthy oral hygiene, healthy body weight, and healthy bones), as well as moderate exercise, smoking control, alcohol limitation, and psychological well-being, utilizes traditional media platforms for education and expands through new media channels like WeChat and Weibo. It broadens its reach through the China Healthy Lifestyle Conference to spread the seeds of a healthy lifestyle in communities, households, workplaces, and schools. It encourages health consciousness to take root and flourish among the people and imparts healthy lifestyle knowledge and skills by developing and promoting supportive tools. By engaging and motivating the public to actively participate, it ultimately promotes comprehensive chronic disease prevention and control.

The “Three Reductions, Three Healthy Conditions” approach to a healthy lifestyle is not just a September annual campaign theme, nor is it limited to Beijing. It should be practiced in the daily lives of everyone across the nation. It starts with each individual becoming their own primary health responsibility. It begins with each family sharing a healthy lifestyle. It extends to every “I” in society creating a healthy living environment, forming a new social trend of health and civility. Let “Three Reductions, Three Healthy Conditions” empower every moment of our lives.