Health, Wellbeing and its Promotion

What is health? What comes to our mind when we hear the word “health”? Is your answer the absence of “disease”? Hopefully, yes. Then let’s start from how the word “disease” came into our vocabulary. As most of origins of words, the term disease too has a fascinating meaning. Let’s start from that.

In Old French “des” expressing reversal and “aise” expressing ease combined to form “desaise”. “Desaise” in Old French, means lack of ease. The word “disease” came into Middle English with the meaning of lack of ease or inconvenience. Is that the idea come across to our mind when we say the word “disease”? Probably the answer will be a big no. Most of us think of an illness or sickness in that situation rather than lack of ease. That is how the words we use came into play the major role with the misconceptions of the term “health”. Now let’s move into our topic health and wellbeing without having any judgments with the words which are settled down in our minds years ago.

As per the discussion of diplomats met to form the United Nations in 1945, the world health organization or the WHO was established with its constitution came into force on 7 April 1948. Now the date is celebrated as “The World Health Day” around the globe. The WHO plays the major part to put forward the meaning of health for its promotion in an evolving nature to ensure a better future for all human beings. Therefore the terms, ideologies related to health have been changed time to time dramatically and the actions needed to achieve them and promote health have changed accordingly.

As the etymology of word disease, “health” has a captivating formation from Germanic origin to Old English and then to Middle English which means wholeness, a being whole and sound well. Today, the word “health” is used in day to day life to represent a good physical form, an absence of illness, or injury. Most of us grasp this intuitive idea with a fixed image of merely absence of a physical or mental disease or disorder.
Without the knowledge of general public, especially the WHO as the global body responsible for promoting healthier lives adopted various strategies, policies, programs to enhance the health in every aspect. The definition of health comes into play a major role in the event to achieve and address the issues to ensure a better life experience for everyone in everywhere without discrimination by any means.

Lately, the WHO together with the nations moved into novel concepts of health, wellbeing and promotion of health to enhance the individuals’ life experience in harmony with each other and with nature in a sustainable way as a humane point of view. Not to be forgotten, the theories, ideologies, concepts put forward by varies philosophical leaders, psychologists, individuals, groups and societies years ago, which we are not going to look into details, made an immense impact on present contexts, practices and initiatives of WHO’s science based strategies.

In early ages health is defined in a biomedical viewpoint. In this regard, it compromise with a state of normal, where bodily functions are in the expected manner and diseases can interrupt its functions over aging. This medical model view body as a machine. A healthy person is considered as an absence of disease, disorder or disability. With the evolving nature of medical sciences, more knowledge and understanding of bodily functions were identified. As a result of that and with the improvement of technology, more abnormalities in expected bodily functions were diagnosed in a manner with the capability to cure or ability to live a better life with optimum bodily functions with medical treatments or interventions while normal aging. This tends to understand that health is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. This is considered as physical health and dependent on bodily functions.

After the evolution of psychological aspects, it considered health in a mind perspective and the idea of mind and body interactions came into play. At that point mental health is recognized as an important factor when estimating one’s health.

It is understood that physical and mental health are not the only factors that determines one’s health, since person lives in a society and has social interaction, the effect of those interactions shown a considerable effect on health. Therefore with the evolution of social and philosophical view points, social health is identified as another major component attributes with health.

A holistic model of health is defined in 1948. According to the WHO, health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

According to ideas of some philosophers, to attain optimum wellbeing, spiritual components like self-actualization are considered as a supreme part of one’s needs. So, spiritual health can be considered as another important factor that affects health. So one can add the spiritual health as another component for definition as a holistic approach.

However recently the WHO recognized importance of promotion of health and take various steps presently, to let people to achieve a better state of wellbeing.

By considering all above factors, we can define health as a state of complete physical, mental, social and spiritual wellbeing in accordance with the WHO definition. Here the WHO integrated the word “wellbeing” to its definition, which is in use nowadays as the better idea when we try to describe a person’s being. This is rather made a controversy between health and wellbeing. And in the western part of the world it is still a debate regarding terms health and wellbeing. In WHOs’ definition of health, it indicates the “complete wellbeing” and by socializing the WHOs’ definition, it leads to an unnecessary complexity where individuals are set back to achieve their own wellbeing and goals due to expectation of complete wellbeing. To overcome this dilemma let’s try to establish better concepts for health and wellbeing, which can immensely contribute for promotion of health.

Oh! Isn’t it so simple? When we met someone, what is the first thing we tend to say? That is “Hello, how are you?” Our answer to that question is how we express our health at that point. Simply, we can agree that the “health is the person’s being”. It is not a fixed thing. It is not static but dynamic. It cannot be a perfect one. It depends on everything going around us at that particular time. It can either be good or bad or even can co-exist both in the same time. Is it measurable? If so we have to take something as reference. If we expect a perfect thing as an absolute, is it the definition we were trying to find out over so many years? No, definitely not. So how can you define health as complete physical, mental, social and spiritual wellbeing? Can anyone have a complete combination of wellbeing of those? Aren’t we going years backward again? According to our parameters, we tend to say someone is healthy or unhealthy. But remember, earlier we discuss that we can live with a disorder or problem and that is included in our definition. So how it becomes a complete thing?

Likewise, what we defined was not what we were seeking to define. This is totally discrimination to a person, who is trying to overcome specially a physical or mental problem to have an optimum wellbeing. This definition adopted by the WHO makes vulnerable such people and persuade the society to come to a judgment on those who are struggling to overcome their problems and to tag them as unhealthy. Isn’t it rather a torture than the acceptance of diversity? What we can guess from this is health also in a spectrum.

Secondly, let’s discuss how to explain someone’s state on a particular time or over a period of time. There should be a way. Yes, we can say health is the person’s being but not the complete wellbeing. Keep in mind, not to come to a conclusion if they are not at your standards. Sometimes it is defined, state of being as physical and state of mind as psychological. Let’s forget the word “state” and just say “person’s being”, so it implies physical, mental, social and spiritual or anything else. There is a point. In that case, we can use term wellbeing and define it without showing any biases for the intention of promotion of health.
Then, what is wellbeing? Why can’t we define wellbeing as “living your life productively with satisfaction without bothering others while minimizing your own bothers or problems?” No one can live without having any bother or problem but anyone can live their life without bothering others. So others will always benefit from us. In that sense, anyone can have a “good life”. Most suitable term goes with wellbeing is “well balanced life”. It indicates that you live with you and others with equilibrium and in harmony. The novel concepts like sustainability and living in harmony with nature come into action only if we get used to think in this way. So we can always enhance our wellbeing to promote overall health and it is a life time process, which has no end or defined amount. Also the wellbeing is not some absolute thing, it depends on person’s likes, dislikes, goals and purposes etc.

So, how can we enhance wellbeing, which eventually leads to promotion of health? According to the definition put forwarded by the WHO on health, we can enhance physical, mental, social and spiritual wellbeing of individuals to enhance our overall wellbeing, which significantly contribute for promotion of health. Another way is promotion of community health, which is a broader way to address the issue, where everyone in the society from top to the bottom and bottom to the top should contribute in the same amount of effort and dedication. It includes nations, international bodies, governments, governors, medical sector, societies, public sector, private sector, schools, politicians, media, religious leaders etc., simply you and me. In that way, we can enhance wellbeing through promotion of health community wise and many absorbing activities take place around the globe, specially the WHO contribute as the leading international body, which is responsible for promotion of health of all nations all over the world.
Here we are discussing several steps that can potentially enhance personal wellbeing.

There are few needs, good habits and healthy life styles required to improve our physical wellbeing. Those are access to unpolluted water and air, sanitation and hygiene, healthy diet, sports and exercises, adequate sleep and rest, good and natural environment, physical fitness, immunity, activeness, availability and access to medical tests for diagnosis of diseases and treatments to control diseases and reduce the impact to bodily functions, take actions to avoid or mitigate communicable diseases and non-communicable diseases through medical interventions and healthy life styles, education on health science and practices etc.

The mental wellbeing can optimize through exploring your abilities, improving the abilities to face challengers, trying to establish a productive life, helping others, engaging in sports, exercising, carrying out aesthetic activities, having hobbies, spending time meaningfully, practicing a simple life style, getting counselling or medical support in need, meditating, feeling gratitude, being grateful, accepting difficulties, self-understanding, achieving self-esteem and enhancing the abilities in decision making, problem solving, coping with stresses, critical thinking, creative thinking, emotional balance, being happy and lively, self-discipline, learning new things, contributing to the society productively, being mindful, being an empath etc.

To raise the social wellbeing, one can be a good team worker, listen to others ideas, be flexible, respect others, acknowledge others, be aware of surroundings, understand and accept differences of others, work peacefully with others, have cooperation, be law-abiding, have productive communication, have good leadership qualities, be empathetic, show good followership qualities, have good interpersonal relationships etc.

Spiritual wellbeing is not connected to a religion or philosophy. It means living your life with a purpose, with good interpersonal skills and growing with time and experience, while correctly understanding one’s place in the society. By achieving spiritual wellbeing person act in a calm way and it bring forth a satisfied person, who is capable to make others happy. A person with spiritual wellbeing, tend to be mindful, friendly, help others in their troubles, feel happy for others in their successes and poses the ability to bear happiness and sadness in the same way with balance. To strengthen spiritual wellbeing, one can practice activities such as enjoying nature, engage in aesthetic activities, working as groups, doing meditation or yoga exercises, doing a sport, managing time, getting counselling and guidance in need, being respectful, being kind, being grateful, being optimistic, being peaceful, being a nature loving person, living according to the religion or moral values without bothering others, living with social norms and ethics etc.

So according to the facts we discussed regarding attaining physical, mental, social and spiritual wellbeing, it is difficult to separate the qualities or actions need to improve particular wellbeing and all are seem to be interconnected. This is finally defined as overall wellbeing of a person and we can understand that the sense of wellbeing is merely a self-oriented context rather than something absolute. So it may vary from person to person both qualitatively and quantitatively, since a person has their own identity. Therefore it is better to adopt a common definition for wellbeing as we formulated earlier, that is living a productive satisfied life without bothering others while minimizing your own bothers. This idea can lead anyone to have a good life without having any judgment and discrimination from others and help the person to achieve an unstoppable wellbeing throughout their life span.

We are not able to increase our wellbeing only by knowing the things we discussed without practicing them. To develop our overall wellbeing, practicing what we are known is essential. Everyone has a unique identity, which may be related to their genes and we can name them as born abilities. One should be able to explore those abilities, which can also named as inert potential that may unseen at present, but can identify and nurture them in a way to improve overall wellbeing. The environmental factors affect the major role on one’s life rather than the genes, but you should keep in mind, the adverse effects attribute to the chemistry or chemical interaction related to body and mind can control in a positive way through medicines or medical interventions to lead a better life by minimizing the malfunctions.

We can improve or facilitate those environmental factors, unlike the genetics which seems impossible to change. Providing and achieving those factors attribute to environment can enhance the person’s wellbeing, but it comes into play only if the person is willing to practice and change the things to increase their own wellbeing. Our brain has plasticity or an adjustable nature, so anyone can learn new things and
try them out to enhance their overall wellbeing continually during their entire life. So there is no amount of wellbeing which the person has to complete at some stage, but it has an evolving nature. All these things will help to have a good, well balanced life with increased happiness and productivity. So the person tends to be happier more and more by enhancing their overall wellbeing and it is a lifelong experience.

Finally one can argue that, facilitate and accommodate to achieve a maximum state of wellbeing during one’s life span by the governing bodies and societies, is the one and only human right require after the person is born into this world. It includes and concludes all rights of human beings required throughout their entire duration of life.

Written by Helinie Yahampath, 2022/01/07. (Please note that the above mentioned ideas are not of the writer but the knowledge accumulated since eras up to the present date, and the references are mentioned below)

References:

  1. Nalaka Mendis, The Emerging Concepts of Mental Health; its Relevance to Personal, Growth, Health and Illnesses, Proceedings in Medicine, 8th International Research Conference – KDU, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv-_tylvGyM, 2015: 12-14.
  2. Nalaka Mendis, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOHWb-0rwuM, Gehan Cooray’s Meeting of the Minds, Daily Mirror, 2021.
  3. Nalaka Mendis, Special Lecture, PPRC Pakistan (Fountain House Lahore) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEX78U7W6mc, 2021.
  4. Martin Seligman, https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/learn/wellbeing, April 2011.
  5. Laurie Santos, https://www.happinesslab.fm. .
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  9. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/word-history-of-disease.
  10. https://www.linkreducation.com/en/content/health-etymology-and-origin/33103.
  11. http://www.med.uottawa.ca/courses/CMED6203/Index_notes/Definitions%20of%20Health.htm.
  12. https://www.wealthpolicypartnership.com/what-is-health-the-search-for-an-accurate-definition.
  13. Health and physical education – Grade 06, Education publications department, Sri Lanka; 2019: 01- 39.

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