“Lifestyle diseases are thought of as separate from communicable diseases or so called contagious diseases. We all understand how you get communicable ailments. You come into contact with a virus, a parasite, or some other funky organism. You can come into contact with these agents through water, air, and food, among other things and the medical profession, epidemiologists, and a whole host of other professionals have helped build antiviral drugs that can prevent the spread of communicable diseases.

But lifestyle diseases- what are they? Simply put, lifestyle diseases are those diseases caused by the way in which we live our lives. These diseases present more complex questions than the more binary questions posed by communicable diseases. Measles occurs whenever a child comes into contact with that virus, but lifestyles are not so simple. Lifestyle diseases, by contrast, are a direct reflection on our consumption. As the size of our plates go up, so do the rates of type 2 diabetes. Because we can directly link a disease like this to our appetites, this puts the effects of that disease squarely in the camp of our questions of consumption. With the exploration of lifestyle diseases we can then begin to ask questions about everything we do. This includes the food we eat, the places we shop, the cars we drive, the churches we attend, the families we create, the television shows we watch, to name just a few questions that sociologists tend to ask when examining one's lifestyle.” (Will Samson, Enough, p.100)