Healthy Living – Adventist Review

Q: “I know Seventh-day Adventists who live what looks like ‘perfect lives’ in all dimensions that I can see, and yet from time to time one will come down with a terrible disease requiring all kinds of stuff to treat them. Does this mean that the lifestyle medicine Ellen White and other reformers prescribe is not able to prevent disease, as she seems to suggest?”

A: Thank you for your insightful question; it exposes a tension many of us wrestle with, especially when we see faithful, health-conscious individuals suffer from disease. It can seem confusing or even disheartening. But we should recognize both the power and the limitations of healthy living and how it fits into a bigger, broken world.

First, it’s important to affirm that lifestyle medicine—rooted in regular physical activity, nutritious plant-based eating, adequate rest, pure air, sunlight, temperance, trust in God, appropriate relationships, etc.—has been shown by both secular and religious researchers to reduce the risk of chronic disease and improve longevity dramatically. Studies such as the Adventist Health Studies, the Blue Zones research, and countless medical publications support that lifestyle habits are among the most powerful influences on disease prevention and quality of life. Ellen White emphasized this long before modern science corroborated it.

Making the best choices, however, does not remove all risk. We each make our choices with their accompanying risk in the context of the complex interplay of factors that affect our health. Some things are simply outside our control: heredity, economic disadvantage, geographic location, environmental contamination, political instability, resource accessibility and limitations, sociocultural norms, and even one’s level of health literacy. Someone may do all the “right” things and still develop cancer or an autoimmune disease because of genetic predisposition or early-life exposures they couldn’t control. Others may live in places with polluted air, unsafe food systems, or inadequate health care and sanitation—despite their best intentions. Not everyone has the same access to whole foods, safe spaces to exercise, or health education. Many sleep in hunger and fear. So we must view and promote lifestyle reform with compassion, not judgment.

Ellen White herself never stated that living healthfully would guarantee the absence of disease. Rather, she urged people to follow God’s laws of health because doing so aligns us with the natural order God designed, bringing physical, mental, social, and spiritual benefits. In this world sickness and suffering will persist despite our best intentions. She herself accepted medical treatment when needed—and many Seventh-day Adventists today also judiciously use medicine, surgery, or other tested therapies when lifestyle alone is inadequate or inappropriate.

Living healthfully is not divine magic—it is divine wisdom. It improves life, lowers risks, and honors God . . . it doesn’t replace our ultimate hope in Christ. There is no “righteousness by lifestyle!” Even the healthiest life is lived in a world that groans under the weight of sin. In the end we trust God to do what is best and look forward to the day when “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Rev. 21:4, NIV).