We advance health lifestyle research by developing the concept of agentic recombination to capture how individuals uniquely combine health behaviors to form adult health lifestyles. Using data from the 2005 to 2019 Transition to Adulthood Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we examine intergenerational transmission of health behaviors, directionality of health behaviors, and health lifestyles. We find significant parent/adult child correspondence in individual health behaviors and directionality of health-beneficial behaviors. However, associations between parent and adult child health lifestyles are comparatively more complex and uncertain. Our findings support theoretical consideration of what we term “agentic recombination”: the structurally informed way that individuals uniquely combine health behaviors to form their overall health lifestyle. Findings extend knowledge on how changing social structural positions shape eventual adulthood health behaviors and provide novel evidence of the intergenerational link between not only health behaviors but also combinations of such behaviors into health lifestyles.
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