health - How Do You Know What You Mean?

Are you salutary - or just not Sick? If this sounds like a trivial question, then but how do you write back it? isn't it piquant that we can as a matter of fact and specifically talk about our Ill-health at length, but we can't talk about health in a way that evokes unambiguous comprehension of what is meant? Does it even matter if there is a definition of the rather amorphous term? Well - we wouldn't dare to go and see a physician in absence of a "symptom" - an exception of your "normal" look or feeling? Of procedure not, health-care systems do not care about Health, they care about the mending  manifest diversions from the "Normal" condition. In other words, health-care should be more aptly referred to as "sick-care", because the principles has no answers for the Healthy. Consequently, the definition of "sick" is rather obvious, it is the visible or experienced discount of general corporal or mental health or function. There are many dissimilar ways of expression, but the essence is unequivocally the same.

Now try to define "Health" and "being healthy" by a term that evokes a universally equivalent understanding. Obviously a challenge, most dictionaries confine the term as something like "the absence of disease". But isn't there much more to health than the absence of an identifiable ailment? Apart from clear corporal Health, what about more concealed mental Health, Emotional Health, Spiritual Health, collective Health, Intellectual health - isn't all that considerable to a state of well being? But does that mean "Health" is the absence of any and all (perceived) problems and concerns - would then "Health" be synonymous with Happiness? Even reduced to corporal health there is a wide spectrum of ambiguity, if you feel tired or fatigued - are you sick or are you healthy? Is weight gain a disease or just a sign of hedonism? Are you ill because you need reading glasses? What about wrinkles and sagging skin - is aging a disease? This thought open a Pandora's box: what is the general rate of aging - where is - and who is the authority for setting the benchmark for "normal"?

Health

Are you as a matter of fact or relatively Healthy?

Researchers at Rice University have tried to define the parameters for measuring Health. They cease that health is measured in terms of

l) absence of corporal pain, corporal disability, or a health that is likely to cause death

2) emotional well-being, and

3) satisfactory collective functioning.

But they admit that there is no single proper of measurement of health status of Individuals or Groups, which may be assessed by an observer. It follows that "Health" assessed in this way is relative and subjective, while what we as a matter of fact want to know is:

Am I as a matter of fact salutary - objectively measured, not subjectively assumed by relative comparison with Others. We don't assess our pain or disfigurement with the neighbors arthritis or cancer. Quite the opposite: we visualize and strive to look as young and slim as the someone on the cover of a magazine. Such natural cravings are the very foundation of an ever growing charm and Anti-Aging industry, even in absence of objective standards.

That is exactly the point: if we can't define health but only Ill-health - we'll never look like that Idol no matter what! Because if we measure our health by its weaning, we'll wait to act until we can define the symptoms, thereby depriving ourselves from gaining and sustaining utmost Vitality and striking Appearance.

If we succeed in establishing a globally valid definition for absolute health - we can as a matter of fact begin to provide of real Health-care, that is caring for the preservation - or revival of the benchmark Health.

References:

Rice University: measurement of health Status

Knowing how salutary you are

health - How Do You Know What You Mean?