Nowadays Russia faces problems, which are specific for the majority of the developed countries with respect to demography and health status. They are: low birth rate, ageing of the population and increase in prevalence of chronic non-infectious diseases (arterial hypertension, heart attacks, cerebral strokes, type 2 diabetes, oncological diseases etc.). But unlike these countries, Russia has retained rather a high mortality rate and a small length of life. The article analyses factors, which influenced this process. The conclusions prove the fact that an "unhealthy" lifestyle plays the primer role in deteriorating the population health in the Russian Federation, including incompliance of healthy nutrition principles.