Tell Me You Are Healthy
The World Health Organization gave a beautiful definition to the perpetual enigma that we call 'health'. This definition is like a suit that covers almost all parts from head to toe, but is the body really in there? The more I learn from the books on medicine and sociology, the more elusive it seems to define health. Let me put before you the international definition from the WHO, the people we consider are the ultimate authority over these aspects as they even guide countries to promote and protect the health of their citizens. They say, 'Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.'
More than a thousand discussions have been held to refine and redefine health, and well-being in the course of it. Thank God for disease has a definition. Diseases fall under three groups: the ones that come and go somewhere in our lives, ones that come, but leaves with us, and the third group comprises those that we are born with, we live with and after our death, takes our children captive. Human body has a million tissues and a godzillion cells engineered to perfection. Are we then taking perfection for granted? Errors can creep in at any level: from the chemicals that make up our DNA to a limb at the wrong place.
I hear a lot of people around me asking me to lose weight. They feel I'm unhealthy with the extra fat hanging around my belly. Let me ask all of them a question - Are you all healthy? Would losing fat, staying fit and maintaining an ideal body weight make me healthy? I do not think so. I believe that health is relative. I am only less healthier than you. Health can never be absolute. No one can ever stay at the brink of health. With a plenty of structural damages and ageing of cells, attaining health is an enigma.
Reflecting upon the WHO definition of health, even the slightest of an itch breaks the physical well-being. Pondering over a depressing situation for over a week damages the mental well-being. Needless to say, social well-being is almost always the most fragile entity. What, then, is being healthy? I think we are all diseased. Who is the absolutely healthy soul here?
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| There is nothing more to ask from God. Infinite thanks for keeping us alive and disease-free. |
More than a thousand discussions have been held to refine and redefine health, and well-being in the course of it. Thank God for disease has a definition. Diseases fall under three groups: the ones that come and go somewhere in our lives, ones that come, but leaves with us, and the third group comprises those that we are born with, we live with and after our death, takes our children captive. Human body has a million tissues and a godzillion cells engineered to perfection. Are we then taking perfection for granted? Errors can creep in at any level: from the chemicals that make up our DNA to a limb at the wrong place.
I hear a lot of people around me asking me to lose weight. They feel I'm unhealthy with the extra fat hanging around my belly. Let me ask all of them a question - Are you all healthy? Would losing fat, staying fit and maintaining an ideal body weight make me healthy? I do not think so. I believe that health is relative. I am only less healthier than you. Health can never be absolute. No one can ever stay at the brink of health. With a plenty of structural damages and ageing of cells, attaining health is an enigma.
Reflecting upon the WHO definition of health, even the slightest of an itch breaks the physical well-being. Pondering over a depressing situation for over a week damages the mental well-being. Needless to say, social well-being is almost always the most fragile entity. What, then, is being healthy? I think we are all diseased. Who is the absolutely healthy soul here?
Good one
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