For Dr. Mary Anne Kiel, Naval Hospital Bremerton pediatrician, being a Lifestyle Medicine physician is an ideal way to make sure her patients – both young and old - are taking care of their health for optimal warfighter support.
The Lifestyle Medicine Clinic has become part of NHB’s Pediatric Clinic and has been a welcome addition to those eligible patients who have taken the opportunity to connect with the concept.
“Lifestyle Medicine focuses on six pillars as a foundation of clinical care: sleep, nutrition, daily movement, stress management, avoidance of risky substances and maintaining positive social connections,” said Kiel, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, who led the Air Force Surgeon General’s Lifestyle and Performance Medicine working group which significantly emphasized the six pillars in everyday patient care.
There has already been a groundswell of positive feedback from a number of patients.
“We’ve had good response. Patients say they sleep better, have more energy and are also improving daily nutrition routines,” said Kiel.
According to Kiel, Lifestyle Medicine is a growing field in medicine based on evidenced-based lifestyle therapeutic measures. The six basic tenets are used by Kiel to promote both chronic disease prevention and remission/reversal.
“Its growing use is attracting attention due to the positive benefits that individuals and populations are seeing with their overall performance, health and longevity,” explained Kiel.
“We help children and teens reach their personal well-being goals through practical, science-backed guidance on nutrition, movement, sleep and stress,” Kiel continued. “From boosting energy to building lifelong healthy habits, we partner with families to create a lifestyle to help kids and their parents thrive every day.”
Kiel notes that lifestyle medicine principles are an underlying part of her work as a physician to prevent and treat chronic diseases such as type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and cardiovascular disease, and to help support military family readiness.
Some of the concerns Lifestyle Medicine can address include sleep difficulty, chronic fatigue and high cholesterol, along with other issues impacting children such as obesity and diabetes.
“We can get to the root causes of such concerns. Lifestyle Medicine provides us the opportunity to address concerns and advocate healthier, daily habits to make a positive difference,” said Kiel, stressing the six pillars.
The Lifestyle Medicine concept for Kiel is not just professional. It also has been transformative on a personal level with refining her own health and wellbeing.
“I was about 12 years into my career as a pediatrician, balancing leadership duties in the Air Force and life at home with three kids. I thought I was doing okay health-wise, but I was constantly exhausted, overweight, and had high cholesterol, at just 38,” related Kiel, who coordinated with a fitness coach for enhanced accountability with her workouts.
“But the very first thing she asked about was my sleep. That question alone was a wake-up call, literally and figuratively. It made me realize how interconnected our habits are and how much I had been neglecting the basics,” continued Kiel, diligently using the next few years to hone her fitness – and sleep – routine.
Another aha moment occurred when her husband discovered an article detailing how plant-based nutrition limits chronic disease.
“That set me off on a deep dive into the science, and eventually, Lifestyle Medicine. The impact on my own health was dramatic. Within six months of making substantial dietary changes, my numbers improved significantly, and I felt like I was on a completely different path—physically, mentally, and emotionally,” said Kiel. “The transformation that I had experienced was so profound that I couldn’t ignore the disconnect I was seeing in our military healthcare system, where chronic conditions are common and lifestyle habits aren’t always effectively addressed. That’s when I started working with other military health professionals trained in Lifestyle Medicine to bring more of this knowledge into how we care for service members and their families.”
Kiel attests that the Lifestyle Medicine concept is tailored for the Military Health System support of operational readiness, from home to deployment.
“It aligns perfectly. Lifestyle Medicine focuses on root causes of sleep, nutrition, stress, movement, connection, avoidance of risky substances. Our mission is to keep service members ready, resilient, and able to perform at their best when duty calls. As a pediatrician by trade assigned to a Defense Health Agency military treatment facility, I work primarily with family members of active-duty personnel on these very issues,” Kiel said, acknowledging that there are unique challenges for military families.
“The pace, the shifts, the deployments [make] it easy for health to take a back seat for all family members. Like most traditional healthcare systems, we focus more on medications and procedures than on daily habits that could make a huge difference,” said Kiel, adding that as a pediatrician she affirms that with 80 percent of new recruits coming from military families that by addressing root causes now, such an investment will bolster the future health and strength of servicemembers. “Lifestyle Medicine helps people feel better, perform better, and recover faster, both physically and mentally. It supports not just quality care, but readiness. We’re a ready medical force ensuring our Navy fleet is a medically ready force.”