Culture and environment : How they can shape your health choices

Last Updated on August 25, 2025 by Grace Oluchi

Culture and environment affects the world more than you think. 

• The way you eat
• What you eat
• How you workout

Even down to how you even feel about being sick, and what you do about it, can be shaped by your culture, and environment.  

Your culture and environment can influence your decisions, and things you do to take care of your health.

Culture and Environment 

What culture does 

Culture plays a big part in how we make decisions about their lives. 

• The food you eat: Your cultural traditions, including your values, can tell you what foods are yummy, and which aren’t, including how you eat and cook them. 

• How we care of our health: Cultural beliefs and practices can affect the steps people take to caring for their health. Some go for medical care, while some prefer using traditional remedies. So, if you get sick, your culture will tell you how to treat yourself. It might be through a doctor, or the use of herbs or other things your family has been using. 

• The way we think: A culture is like a set of rules, and ideas that people in a group share. These cultural beliefs and practices, help people understand what’s healthy, and what’s not healthy. 

How your environment helps or hurt

 The place or area you live in, can also affect the quality of your life. 

Where you are: Your environment can do two things, it can either discourage or encourage physical activity. For example, if you live near a park, you’d be able to do some physical activity like exercise. But, if there are no areas or safe spaces, it’ll be harder to exercise. Also, if the air is bad, it can make you sick. 

The people around you: If you have friends or families that like to eat healthy foods, and stay active, you probably will too. But, if they’re always stressed, fighting, eating foods that aren’t healthy, they can affect you too. 

What you have access to: In some environments, there is no access to healthy, and clean foods, or even a doctor. These things matter a lot, and can affect your health. 

Pollution: If you’re always exposed to things like:

• air pollution
• noise pollution

Or lack of green spaces like trees, can badly affect your physical and mental health. It will be very hard to be productive in such an environment, and will be hard to grow. 

How culture and environment affect each other 

Sometimes your culture, and where you live affect each other. For example, if your culture is the type that cares about your environment, and community, it can be cleaner, and better. 

Or if your culture prefers certain types of food, it can influence the foods you’ll be able to get in your environment. 

Cultures that value and encourage people to socialize, can add to the availability of things like:

• Parks
• Community centers 
• Support groups 

It’s important that you understand that your culture and your environment impacts your life and health in general.

When you understand this you can:

• Make better choices that keep you safe and healthy.
• Support policies and steps that aim to create healthy environments, including access to health care.
• Encourage people to prioritize their health, wellness, and social life.