Sunday, January 2, 2011
Be Healthy, My Friend
The word "Health" has become almost meaningless.
This is due to a number of factors, but one of the chief ones, I suspect, is marketing.
It helps to sell things as "healthy" if there is no clear idea what that actually means.
I will resist the temptation to get into that whole topic...
What
I do want to do is try to remove some of the abstraction, by breaking
it down into its constituent parts. While the term itself eludes a
single precise definition, there's a list of components that are part of
it, and those parts are reasonably concrete.
-A lack of, resistance to, and/or ability to recover from infection (by viruses, bacteria, protozoa, fungus, or parasite)
Even a healthy person may get the occasional cold, but they will get better more quickly
-A lack of, resistance to, and/or ability to recover from non-infectious-disease (such as diabetes or angina)
-A lack of, resistance to, and/or ability to recover from injury
-Longevity (how long you live)
-General fitness*
-Mental/emotional
health - I wholeheartedly acknowledge that this is a very important
part of overall health; however there is so much to cover just
considering physical health that I won't mention mental/emotional here any further
than this sentence.
