LIVELY: Lifestyle Medicine Education Meets Community Engagement

“LIVELY’s faculty and student leadership have a vision that includes continued growth and refinement, guided by participant feedback and evolving best practices in medical education.”

Introduction: Beginnings of LIVELY

The journey to becoming a skilled physician is shaped not only by textbooks and clinical rotations, but also by opportunities to teach and lead. LIVELY (Lifestyle Interventions through Empowerment & Learning for Youth) was born out of this philosophy—a unique lifestyle medicine educational program led by medical and pre-medical students for teens in underserved areas of Boston. The program’s roots trace back to founder Vivian Wang’s middle school years, where she witnessed firsthand the profound impact of mental health challenges among peers. In response to the youth mental health crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic, ¹ Wang and collaborator Katherine Du launched Mindful Exchanges, a program that offers free, virtual mental health education seminars for students, in collaboration with a fellow member of the Yale Student Mental Health Association, Katherine Du. Since Mindful Exchanges was founded in 2020, it has reached over 1000 students across the U.S., Canada, Bangladesh, and Japan in partnership with organizations like the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This early success laid the groundwork for LIVELY.

In 2023, the formation of LIVELY was catalyzed by a call posted for medical students to collaborate with Harvard Medical School faculty, Dr Beth Frates, then President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM), to develop a teen curriculum for Boston’s underserved youth. To effectively teach lifestyle medicine interventions to youth, those teaching them must first understand the material and feel a sense of mastery. However, even healthcare professionals often lack this training since it is not included in the core curriculum of most medical schools. ² Lifestyle Medicine Interest Groups provide a parallel curriculum for medical students to learn about the six pillars of lifestyle medicine: nutrition, physical activity, sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances and behaviors, and social connectedness. ³ Medical students will not only learn but also master the material if they need to teach it to others. By setting up a framework for medical students to learn about lifestyle medicine and then teach it to middle and high school students, ⁴ the LIVELY program inspires medical students to investigate the lifestyle medicine pillars and work to make it applicable to the daily lives of teens. Bringing the science and power of the six pillars of lifestyle medicine to teens is an important way to promote early adoption of healthy lifestyles. ⁵ Teaching and empowering teens to engage in healthy lifestyle behaviors is crucial because early intervention is a key determinant in promoting lifelong healthy behaviors and reducing inequities in health outcomes. ⁶ LIVELY’s goal is to bridge medical education, community engagement, and youth empowerment through lifestyle medicine.

The LIVELY program was launched in 2024, marking the inaugural year of the Lifestyle Medicine Interest Group at Harvard College. Medical students from the Lifestyle Medicine Interest Group and pre-med/pre-healthcare professional students from Harvard College were invited to join the LIVELY team. Including college students as educators not only benefits the teens but also helps the college students master the material. Including Lifestyle Medicine in pre-professional education is important because the material is relevant for many different careers and jobs, as well as the health of the students themselves. ⁷ In order to maximize the number of medical and college students who could participate in the program and provide this opportunity at a time when there was minimal academic stress, the LIVELY program was delivered over the summer when college students and medical students had a break from their own schoolwork.

Curriculum Creation: A Collaborative, Evidence-Based Approach

Designing LIVELY’s curriculum was a team effort, blending existing resources with original content. Content from the ACLM’s Teen Curriculum slides, the Teen Lifestyle Medicine Handbook, ⁸ and modules from Mindful Exchanges were integrated into the curriculum. Weekly team meetings with students and the faculty advisor fostered collaboration and accountability. Each member of the volunteer leadership team took responsibility for developing and refining one week’s content, promoting a diversity of voices and perspectives.

This iterative process emphasized the importance of peer review and shared learning. Students not only deepened their understanding of lifestyle medicine but also honed skills in curriculum design, communication, and leadership, which are essential for future physicians interested in academia. The faculty advisor took the opportunity to teach core lifestyle medicine principles during these meetings, as well.

Educational Design: Techniques for Engaging Youth

LIVELY’s philosophy is rooted in active learning. Each session is built around clear, measurable objectives and prioritizes culturally relevant, application-based activities over passive lectures.^9,10 For example, rather than simply discussing nutrition, students and teens co-create healthy meal plans using ingredients available in their neighborhoods. Role-playing, group discussions, and real-life storytelling make the six pillars of lifestyle medicine tangible and relatable. Each LIVELY lesson plan concludes with a call to action; students and volunteers create a pillar-centric goal, following the SMART-goal framework (Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, and Time-sensitive)—to further concretize LIVELY’s curriculum.

Youth in underserved areas face unique barriers to health. By integrating the lessons with their lived experiences and voices, the curriculum becomes not only informative but also empowering. The overall goal is for the program to be transformational.

Community Collaboration: The Boys & Girls Clubs Partnership

Key to LIVELY’s success was our partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston (BGCB). These trusted community organizations provided safe and accessible spaces, helping us connect with a diverse cohort of 40 middle and high school students. The BGCB leadership and staff offered invaluable insights into the needs and strengths of local youth, ensuring our program was relevant and timely.

Implementation: Structure and Schedule

The pilot ran over six weeks in the summer at two Boys & Girls Clubs sites: the Yawkey Club of Roxbury and the Edgerley Family South Boston Club. Fifteen Harvard Medical School and Harvard College volunteers led weekly sessions, each structured with an opening reflection, interactive activity, and didactic component. Topics included.

• Week 1: Introduction to Lifestyle Medicine

• Week 2: Nutrition

• Week 3: Physical Activity

• Week 4: Sleep

• Week 5: Stress Management & Healthy Coping

• Week 6: Social Connection

Sessions emphasized the connection between physical health and mental well-being, with teens encouraged to share their own experiences and goals.

Evaluation: Learning from Feedback

While not a formal research study, LIVELY employed pre- and post-program surveys to guide evaluation and project improvement. Questions about self-perceived knowledge revealed that after the program, fewer students were reporting the lowest levels of knowledge (“What’s that?” and “I know little.”) in all pillars. Questions about self-reported activity in each pillar demonstrated a change between pre- and post-responses. These changes in responses are reflected in Table 1.

Table 1.

Change in Frequency of Self-Description or Reported Activity.

Self-Description or Reported Activity	Pre-program (%)	Post-program (%)	Percentage Point
Never engage in physical activity	7.1	0.0	7.1
Often or always engage in physical activity	53.1	70.3	17.2
Self-describe as “pretty knowledgeable” or “expert” in physical activity	67.9	77.8	9.9
Never eat fruits or vegetables	3.6	0.0	3.6
Always eat fruits or vegetables	25.0	37.0	12.0
Self-describe as “pretty knowledgeable” or “expert” in nutrition	39.3	59.3	20.0
Sleep “pretty good” or being a “sleep champion”	42.9	59.2	16.3
Never practice activities like deep breathing and meditation	37.0	18.5	18.5
Self-describe as “experts” in stress management	7.1	14.8	7.7
Do not have weak connections with family and friends	3.6	0.0	3.6
Self-describe as “experts” in positive social connections	7.1	18.5	11.4
Self-describe as “experts” in avoiding risky substances	25.0	37.0	12.0

Feedback from the participants indicated intent to continue using lifestyle medicine concepts, with no participants reporting “Not likely” to the question, “How likely are you to continue practicing the lifestyle habits you learned during the program?”

One volunteer shared:

“The highlight of LIVELY for me was definitely the students. They were phenomenal and incredibly diverse, which is so important when teaching this type of curriculum. Having students from different backgrounds and marginalized communities is crucial, as it helps them see themselves as future healthcare workers and highlights the value of diversity among our volunteers, as well.”

Using the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) model,^11,12 the LIVELY team worked to enhance the experience and engagement for the teen learners, medical students, and college volunteers for the following year. The PowerPoint presentations were enhanced with a focus on including more images that participants could relate to. For example, incorporating information about Boston sports teams was well received by the teen learners. Thus, the team worked to add more slides with information about the Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots, and Bruins.

Recognition and Future Directions

LIVELY’s impact has already been widely recognized. The program received the 2024 American Psychiatric Association Helping Hands grant to support ongoing efforts and the 2025 Volunteer Group of the Year Award from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston. Encouraged by the success in Boston, the model was shared with colleagues at Stanford and other schools, where similar initiatives are being considered. LIVELY ran successfully for a second year of programming and expanded to include pre-medical student volunteers from Boston University, led by Karoline Sanchez (Class of 2027), as well as a third Boys & Girls Clubs site at the Jordan Club of Chelsea in summer 2025. LIVELY also expanded to partner with the Boys & Girls Club of Puerto Rico for Fall of 2025 and Winter 2026, with the support of a Harvard College fellowship won by Harvard College graduate Noah Janfaza, who has been actively involved with LIVELY since its inception. LIVELY’s faculty and student leadership have a vision that includes continued growth and refinement, guided by participant feedback and evolving best practices in medical education.

Conclusion: Teaching as the Ultimate Learning Experience

LIVELY helps both the teen learners and the student teachers. This is a unique pilot program that has been shown to increase the self-reported knowledge of teens and also have a positive impact on their behaviors by self-report. One of the goals of LIVELY is to improve the lifestyle medicine knowledge of medical students and college students, enabling them to teach it in an inspiring way, with the goal of increasing knowledge and empowering behavior change among teens. The goal of leading LIVELY sessions is to enable medical and college students to master lifestyle medicine concepts, develop teaching and leadership skills, and make a tangible difference in the lives of young people. In turn, teens will gain knowledge and advocacy tools that can shape lifelong health trajectories.

As the need for lifestyle medicine education among teens grows, especially in underserved communities, programs like LIVELY aim to offer a blueprint for meaningful, mutually beneficial engagement.