Education & upskilling

2.4.2 Healthy lifestyle habits

The private sector’s role in promoting healthy lifestyle behaviours lies in using its influence over daily routines and access to goods/services and by providing the education and skills adults need to sustain them, focusing on making healthy choices accessible, understandable, and routine.

Workplaces: Employers can directly integrate lifestyle education into the work environment, recognizing that health behaviours are often constrained by time and stress. A key intervention involves providing functional health education through interactive, readily available digital platforms that demystify health information, such as nutrition and exercise recommendations, and simplify complex topics like stress management techniques.

Furthermore, offering practical skills training—such as on-site cooking demonstrations focused on quick, healthy, and affordable meal preparation, or coaching on proper form for physical activity—empowers employees to translate knowledge into daily practice. This educational effort is often tied to financial incentives, which make the pursuit of healthy choices an economically smart decision for the adult (Gilson, 2017).

Technology and educational firms: Technology companies can develop and widely distribute educational apps that use plain language and visual aids to teach core lifestyle skills, such as how to read nutritional labels, track personal health metrics (e.g., blood pressure, sleep), and correctly interpret information from wearable devices. This content needs to be culturally competent and easily accessible to diverse populations, including those with limited digital skills.

Community Programs: By partnering with community non-profits, the private education sector can ensure that this practical health skills training is delivered effectively, closing the gap between general health awareness and the individual competence required to adopt and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Educational Ecosystem: Ultimately, the private sector’s most effective strategy is to leverage its power to create a supportive “ecology of education” around healthy behaviours. This involves continuous, personalized feedback and education, not just one-off classes. For example, financial service providers can offer budgeting tools that incorporate nutritional goals, teaching the skill of “healthy financial planning” alongside healthy eating. Similarly, retailers can provide educational prompts at the point of sale (or point of online checkout) with tips on using healthy ingredients or suggesting simple exercise routines that fit a busy adult schedule.

By delivering contextual, relevant, and skills-based education across various touch points—work, home, and commerce—the private sector moves from simply promoting health to providing the necessary education and tools for adults to build and sustain a high healthspan throughout their lives.