The Bald PT & Nutrition Coach

WHAT IS HEALTH?
A controversial topic in today’s society

What is health?
Can we define health in one simple sentence? Maybe, but defiantly not with someone else having a different opinion or wanting to add something to it. “An apple a day, keeps the doctor away”, we all know that saying but is it that simple.
With the growing appearance of social media influencers and celebrities promoting certain diets or looks, the controversy of what a healthy individual is supposed to be like has changed quite a bit over the years. A lot of people finally understand that we do not all have to look like Victoria Secret models and do not need to have muscles like our Superheroes in “The Avengers”. In many Island States and a lot of regions throughout Africa and South America, a curvier woman is even more likely to attract a man than a slim woman.
Another way to look at health is to describe health as the absence of injury, illness, or disease. This is in merit with many health professionals and refers to the state of balance between each of the body systems. The problem with this version of health is that it does not necessarily include one mental or physical health, which has become a major factor in recent decades.
A more scientific view on health would be to take into count a person’s Body Mass Index (BMI). The problem here however is, as a study of male youth rugby players shows, that it does not include people with a large muscle mass. This includes Bodybuilders and other sports where a large muscle mass is beneficial as well. Even though a lot of us would agree that our rugby players must be some of the healthiest individuals out there to be able to compete in their sport, their high BMI would put them down as either overweight or even obese.

The 5 Dimensions of Health
It is important to strive for a maximum in all 5 areas of holistic health to achieve a truly healthy body and mind.
1. Physical Health: Building a strong physical foundation that drives all other dimensions is key. Creating muscles to stand, move, work, play and remain independent for as long as possible. This is where your physical activity and your diet play a big role.
2. Emotional Health: Ease-of-use and real-time feedback that displays results lead to increased strength and stamina, renewed confidence, and the tenacity to peruse life’s passion. To be able to cope with life’s ups and downs and to control your feelings.
3. Social Health: Overall community participation, maintaining and engaging in new relationships and activities. Setting up our children for interpersonal relationships and teaching them proper communication skills.
4. Mental Health: Defining your state of well-being and how you realize your potential, cope with the normal stress of life, work productively, and be an asset to the community.
5. Spiritual Health: This is integral to health and wellbeing. The ability to establish peace and harmony and to act on personal beliefs to live a purposeful life.

What determents our health?
Our health is determined by many outer influences that are hard to manipulate. Our genetics is the number one factor and the hardest to modify. Other influences we can manipulate is our education, relationships, income, community environment and to a degree our residency.

It all starts when we are born, obviously, our parents and their genetics will automatically dictate in which race or culture we are born. As mentioned previously, health as a visual has major differences in race and culture. Many nations in Africa, South America and Island States associate a curvy woman to have better reproductive health and a larger man as a wealthier provider for their families. In western culture however, the “lean body” is still seen as a positive sign of health.
Your socioeconomic determines includes factors such as income, employment, education, social support, and housing, which are all intricately linked to health. In general, individuals from a poorer background do not have the education on how to live a healthy life. A lack of income due to unemployment or just a job that doesn’t pay well adds to the historically higher rate of illness, disability, and overall shorter life.

So, what is health? Health is more than just how we look and what we eat. It is how we are brought up by our parents and teachers and early influencers. It is how we communicate with others and how we build and maintain our relationships. It is how mentally strong we are when life throws another curveball at us. It is to be able to talk about our emotions and understand that we can’t all be perfect in every way but are all perfect in each induvial way. And yes, it is also to keep physically active and follow a well-balanced diet because, without the fundamentals, the upper layers won’t hold.