Family medicine increasingly encounters patients whose health problems do not fit neatly into single-disease categories. Hypertension, obesity, sleep disturbance, chronic pain, anxiety, depression, loneliness, caregiver burden, medication non-adherence and social vulnerability often coexist in the same consultation. Conventional biomedical measurement remains indispensable, but it is insufficient when the determinants of illness are distributed across daily habits, family dynamics, social connection, meaning, work, stress and community resources. This narrative review and practice framework proposes Vital Literacy in Family Medicine (VITAL-FM) as a person-centred, family-sensitive and community- oriented model for integrating lifestyle medicine, social connection and meaning-making into primary healthcare. The model is grounded in contemporary primary healthcare principles, preventive recommendations, lifestyle medicine, social prescribing, evidence on loneliness and social isolation, and validated screening instruments for common psychosocial risks. VITAL-FM defines vital literacy as the practical capacity of individuals and families to understand, enact and sustain the behaviours, relationships, routines and meanings that support health across the life course. The framework contains five clinical domains: Vital screening of hidden suffering; Integrated lifestyle prescription; Ties and social connection; Agency, narrative and meaning-making; and Longitudinal follow-up with community linkage. It is designed for use in short consultations through a stepped workflow: identify risk, protect safety, co-create one or two micro- rescriptions, mobilise family or community assets, and follow measurable outcomes over time. The article discusses implementation across adolescence, adulthood, older age and palliative contexts, with attention to equity, non-stigmatisation, digital tools and clinician workload. VITAL-FM is not a substitute for mental health treatment, specialist care or structural action on social determinants; rather, it offers a clinical grammar that helps family physicians convert fragmented lifestyle advice into a coherent, ethical and measurable form of whole-person care.