What Is Health?
Health is the state of physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. A common view of health is that it includes a person’s freedom from illness, but also their happiness and their ability to participate fully in society. In order for people to be healthy they need to have a good balance of their inner resources and possibilities with the demands of the surrounding environment.
As the world’s understanding of Health has developed over time, so too has its approach to promoting it. Today’s health professionals recognise that health is determined by many factors outside of a person’s control, and that their work involves more than just treating or preventing disease and injury. They are increasingly focussing on the broader concept of ‘healthy societies’, and trying to find ways to improve people’s lives in a range of different ways.
Despite this shift in thinking, there are still wide differences in concepts of Health. This reflects the fact that, like disease, health is a socially and culturally constructed concept that makes sense predominantly in its home context. Attempts to understand it beyond this context can be problematic because it is easy for conceptualization to mislead, as it tends to localize and attribute identity, content or meaning to phenomena that are not firmly established within their home context.
A person’s definition of health reflects the values they place on life and what they consider to be important for their own well-being. These values are shaped throughout a person’s lifetime by their parents, friends, teachers, religion, the media and laws. It is therefore difficult to change people’s definition of Health.
Modern medical advances, including the discovery of new diseases and methods to cure them, mean that a person’s health is now measured by a much wider spectrum than in the past. As a result, many people who were previously deemed to be healthy can now be diagnosed with diseases that they had not been aware of.
In 1948 the Constitution of the World Health Organization defined a health goal that is widely regarded as a basic human right: “The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health”. Although this definition acknowledges the existence of diseases and the need for their control, it does not necessarily ensure that an individual will be able to function in society. This is because the definition does not take into account a person’s ability to cope with or adjust to changes in their environment. It is for this reason that a healthful lifestyle is considered to be a prerequisite of good Health.
Health is the state of physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. A common view of health is that it includes a person’s freedom from illness, but also their happiness and their ability to participate fully in society. In order for people to be healthy they need to have a good balance of their inner resources and possibilities with the demands of the surrounding environment. As the world’s understanding of Health has developed over time, so too has its approach to promoting it. Today’s health professionals recognise that health is determined by many factors outside of a person’s control, and that their work involves more than just treating or preventing disease and injury. They are increasingly focussing on the broader concept of ‘healthy societies’, and trying to find ways to improve people’s lives in a range of different ways. Despite this shift in thinking, there are still wide differences in concepts of Health. This reflects the fact that, like disease, health is a socially and culturally constructed concept that makes sense predominantly in its home context. Attempts to understand it beyond this context can be problematic because it is easy for conceptualization to mislead, as it tends to localize and attribute identity, content or meaning to phenomena that are not firmly established within their home context. A person’s definition of health reflects the values they place on life and what they consider to be important for their own well-being. These values are shaped throughout a person’s lifetime by their parents, friends, teachers, religion, the media and laws. It is therefore difficult to change people’s definition of Health. Modern medical advances, including the discovery of new diseases and methods to cure them, mean that a person’s health is now measured by a much wider spectrum than in the past. As a result, many people who were previously deemed to be healthy can now be diagnosed with diseases that they had not been aware of. In 1948 the Constitution of the World Health Organization defined a health goal that is widely regarded as a basic human right: “The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health”. Although this definition acknowledges the existence of diseases and the need for their control, it does not necessarily ensure that an individual will be able to function in society. This is because the definition does not take into account a person’s ability to cope with or adjust to changes in their environment. It is for this reason that a healthful lifestyle is considered to be a prerequisite of good Health.