What Does It Mean to Be “Healthy”

“Healthy” is often used to describe physical health, but it can also refer to mental, emotional, and social health. It’s important to remember that each person has their own definition of what being healthy means to them. If you look up “health” on Instagram, you’ll mostly find people with perfect bodies who are selling supplements, diet foods, and juicing equipment. You get the picture—you’ve probably seen the pictures, too.

Researchers pinpoint some major problems with this near-constant imagery. First, media (particularly social media) can influence what actions people think are necessary to achieve a certain goal. 1. These are generally linked with negative psychological effects and poorer physical health outcomes

The bottom line is that research shows that people’s body shapes are not always a good indication of how healthy they are. In a world where poor body image is common, it is fair to question whether we are accurately identifying what it means to be healthy.

What Makes up a “Healthy Life”

The fitness influencers are correct when they say that a healthy diet, regular exercise and avoiding smoking are important for a healthy life. Although the amount of greens you consume is important for your wellbeing, it is not the only factor.

Living a healthy lifestyle is more than just what you see on social media. It’s about finding a balance that works for you. A new study that has been published in the British Medical Journal states that you cannot make up for an unhealthy diet by working out and that juice cleanses will not make up for a sedentary lifestyle.

You don’t need to change every aspect of your lifestyle all at once. Studies have shown that making small adjustments over time leads to more sustainable long-term habits.

Nutrition

It’s easy to get so focused on losing weight that we forget to pay attention to our overall nutritional needs. Too much salt, sugar, and saturated fat in your diet raises your risk of diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. You should restrict and avoid these things to stay healthy.

It is important that you eat food that is rich in nutrients to maintain good health. For example:

People who do not have enough magnesium, calcium, and vitamins A, C, D, E, and K in their diets are more likely to have trouble sleeping.

If you aren’t consuming enough protein, it can lead to a slower metabolism and put on weight.

Healthy fats are key to warding off heart disease and can help keep you feeling energized.

Depression and nutrition are closely related, according to Briana Severine, a mental health expert. “This diet includes plenty of vegetables, fruits, nuts, and grains, and moderate amounts of fish, poultry, and wine.” She states that healthy diets, such as the Mediterranean diet, have been associated with reduced risk of depression symptoms. This diet includes plenty of vegetables, fruits, nuts, and grains, and moderate amounts of fish, poultry, and wine.

Movement

Regular physical activity doesn’t just help with weight management. Exercise has many benefits that go beyond physical fitness. It also has the potential to reduce your risk of chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes, help maintain healthy bones and joints, and contribute to better mental health and mood. Despite the fact that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 60 percent of Americans do not get enough physical activity each day, many people still do not make an effort to improve their level of fitness.

The reasons why people don’t exercise are pretty consistent, according to researchers. The main reasons are lack of time, lack of access to resources, and feeling tired.

but The important thing is that you don’t need to have an extensive, time-consuming physical activity routine to get the benefits. Studies show:

• Going on a brisk 10-minute walk every day could extend your lifespan.12
• Getting your heart rate up for just 12 minutes a day can help protect your cardiovascular system.

Additional Wellness Factors

Since sleep is important for your body to recover and rest, not getting enough sleep can have consequences, according to Jeffrey Dlott, Medical Director of Consumer Health at Quest Diagnostics.

If you’re not getting enough sleep on a regular basis, it can start to affect your health. Too little sleep can make you sick more often and also increase your risk of developing chronic conditions like heart disease, obesity, diabetes, etc.

Chronic stress can have a negative impact on your physical and mental health. Stress can lead to high levels of the hormone cortisol, which can suppress your immune system and lead to other chronic health conditions over time if not managed.

The World Health Organisation – They should know this, right?

The World Health Organization (WHO) has redefined health as a state of complete mental, social, and physical wellbeing, rather than simply the absence of illness or injury. This is an improvement on the previous definition, which was effectively “not currently sick or injured”.

There are some issues with the definition above, which we discuss in the first module of The BTN Academy.

• Who defines what a complete state is?
• How do you know when you get there?
• What if you can NEVER get there – for example if you’re born with a condition like Spina Bifida does that mean you are ALWAYS just an unhealthy person because you don’t have what most would consider to be a complete state of physical wellbeing?

And even more importantly:

• What if a move away from a complete state is, itself, healthy? For example, if a beloved family pet passes away then this will leave you in something that could hardly be defined as a complete state of mental wellbeing, but that’s because you’re grieving…which is healthy

A more up-to-date definition has been suggested which is “able to adapt to your current environment and react accordingly in order to return to baseline”. This means that if something goes bad then you should be able to deal with it properly and get back to where you should be.

But again, what is baseline? Where should you be? Who decides that and what criteria do they use to make their decision?

If someone loses an arm, the wound can heal, and your body can return to normal in a biochemical sense. Even though the person is not where they were prior to the injury, they are still considered healthy. This person is saying that if the definition of “healthy” is “able to return to baseline,” then none of us are truly healthy because we cannot regenerate a limb.

If a person is under extreme stress at work and at home, they may not be able to deal with a bereavement in a healthy manner, but does that make them unhealthy? They are a healthy person in a bad situation, aren’t they?

If we lose a very close loved one, that can affect us for life. Does that make a widow/widower unhealthy forever? Who gets to decide?

See, it’s complicated.

Is health relative?

Because health is relative, it is complicated.

When outlining his “Homeostatic Cluster Property Theory of Meta-ethical Naturalism”, the philosopher Richard Boyd uses this as an example. Although it is quite complicated and we barely understand it, it is not important for our purposes today.

What’s important is that he uses health as an example. This is especially relevant in today’s world, where there’s an increasing focus on health, but also a lot of discussion about topics like “healthy at any size,” the anti-diet movement, and other issues related to medical care, ethics, and mental health.

The Philosophy of Health

Here’s the proposal:

“Health” is a real thing that actually exists. There are various degrees of health, and it is possible to be healthy or not healthy to varying degrees. The way we designate good or bad health is not random.

Health is not a single, isolated entity, but rather a group of factors that tend to go together and that we often understand instinctively rather than being able to explain logically. It is difficult to explain health in abstract terms, but it is possible to tell if a person is healthy by looking at them or talking to them. The reason is demonstrated below.

If you’d come up with a list of all the things that define health, you may come up with something like:

Breathing

Free of cuts, burns, and other wounds

Free of disease

Heart is beating

Has friends

Free of anxiety

Etc.

Although these things are often present in cases of good health, and absent in cases of bad health, they are not necessarily always present or absent.

If someone has a burn on their skin, most people would not say that they are unhealthy. The person is still considered healthy, even though they have the burn. If you are feeling a little bit sick, you would probably describe yourself as healthy, even though you may have a disease, bug, or illness.

Also, you can find people who are breathing and don’t have any diseases who we would say are unhealthy because they have other problems, like drug addictions.

If you continue down this rabbit hole, you will eventually come across some very difficult questions to answer.

• Is a smoker who doesn’t have any current lung/mouth/throat problems healthy?
• What about a person with plantar fasciitis?
• Is a person with osteoarthritis more or less healthy than a person with gingivitis?
• Is a person with obesity, but no other health issues, healthy?

How you define the terms is crucial to understanding the answers. Which things do you find most important? How important are they relative to other things? And so on.

You can probably answer those questions to a point, but someone else would answer them differently and there’s no way of knowing objectively who’s more right because there is no single definition of health that would describe the condition of every healthy person but exclude every unhealthy person, and there is no sliding scale that allows fair comparisons between two people unless you already defined the thing you’re looking at (meaning you can’t say whether Dave is healthier than Steve unless you come up with a means of comparison like blood pressure, glucose tolerance, etc).

How to Know If You’re Living a Healthy Life

A healthy, sustainable lifestyle is different for everyone. What’s best for one person might not work for another. However, experts claim that these signs indicate that you are leading a healthy life.

Your Energy Levels are Stable

If you find yourself with plenty of energy during the day, it’s likely a sign that you’re getting good-quality sleep. The amount of fat, carbohydrates, and proteins you eat can affect how much energy you have. Your energy levels throughout the day can help guide what is best for you.

You Handle Stress Well

Stress is an inevitable part of life. 16 It can be good for you to experience stress if you manage it in a healthy way, according to researchers. A sign that you’redoing well in managing stress is your ability to set boundaries. Severine believes that by setting boundaries, you are recognizing and prioritizing your needs. This could include setting limits for how much physical space someone can take up, how frequently you want to see them, what kind of emotions you are willing to share with them, the time you spend on certain activities, what kind of sexual interactions you are comfortable with, how much respect you expect for your thoughts and ideas, and what kind of material possessions you are willing to share.

You’ve Got Fresh Breath

This is because the mouth is a direct opening into the body, and any changes or problems that occur in the mouth can be an indication of a more serious issue elsewhere in the body. If you have poor oral health, the bacteria in your mouth can spread to your respiratory and digestive tracts.

This is according to Galati, who suggests that increased bacteria entering your body can lower your immune response and make you more likely to develop general health problems, including heart disease, pregnancy and birth complications, and pneumonia. Chronic bad breath is a common sign of oral health problems.

You Check In With Your Doctor

Dlott notes that preventive care is an important aspect of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. A study in 2015 found that only 8% of US adults received the preventive care that is recommended.

But going to routine health screenings and checkups may help prevent getting sick, getting diseases, and having chronic health conditions and help find illnesses in earlier stages when treatment is likely to work better, he explains, which may lead to better health outcomes.