At a global and national level , type 2 diabetes poses a considerable and growing challenge placing a significant burden on individual , community and health system . Lifestyle risk factor reduction is an important component of diabetes education that aim to improve diabetes control and reduce short and long term complications such as heart disease and renal failure . This paper has highlighted how the health promotion concept of “Perceived barriers” is a strong predictor of healthy lifestyle behaviour in women . Despite this , current frameworks for diabetes education do not include the concept of perceived barriers in relation to risk factor reduction . The “Lifestyle risk factor modification and perceived barrier model” described could potentially enchance indentification and goal setting in clinical practice to reduce an individual’s perceived barrier and promote healthy lifestyle behavior . While further research is needed to establish the efficacy of this model , it may provide an innovation contribution to lifestyle risk factor reduction in the type 2 diabetes .