Friday, September 14, 2012

health - How Do You Know What You Mean?

Health >>>
Are you salutary - or just not Sick? If this sounds like a trivial question, then but how do you riposte it? isn't it arresting that we can literally and specifically talk about our Ill-health at length, but we can't talk about condition in a way that evokes unambiguous insight of what is meant? Does it even matter if there is a definition of the rather amorphous term? Well - we wouldn't dare to go and see a physician in absence of a "symptom" - an exception of your "normal" look or feeling? Of course not, health-care systems do not care about Health, they care about the mending manifest diversions from the "Normal" condition. In other words, health-care should be more aptly referred to as "sick-care", because the ideas has no answers for the Healthy. Consequently, the definition of "sick" is rather obvious, it is the visible or experienced reduction of general corporal or mental condition or function. There are many dissimilar ways of expression, but the essence is unequivocally the same.

Now try to define "Health" and "being healthy" by a term that evokes a universally equivalent understanding. Obviously a challenge, most dictionaries confine the term as something like "the absence of disease". But isn't there much more to condition than the absence of an identifiable ailment? Apart from evident corporal Health, what about more concealed mental Health, Emotional Health, Spiritual Health, communal Health, Intellectual condition - isn't all that requisite to a state of well being? But does that mean "Health" is the absence of any and all (perceived) problems and concerns - would then "Health" be synonymous with Happiness? Even reduced to corporal condition there is a wide spectrum of ambiguity, if you feel tired or fatigued - are you sick or are you healthy? Is weight gain a disease or just a sign of hedonism? Are you ill because you need reading glasses? What about wrinkles and sagging skin - is aging a disease? This understanding open a Pandora's box: what is the general rate of aging - where is - and who is the authority for setting the benchmark for "normal"?

Health

Are you literally or relatively Healthy?

Researchers at Rice University have tried to define the parameters for measuring Health. They discontinue that condition is measured in terms of

l) absence of corporal pain, corporal disability, or a condition that is likely to cause death

2) emotional well-being, and

3) satisfactory communal functioning.

But they admit that there is no singular suitable of estimation of condition status of Individuals or Groups, which may be assessed by an observer. It follows that "Health" assessed in this way is relative and subjective, while what we literally want to know is:

Am I literally salutary - objectively measured, not subjectively assumed by relative comparison with Others. We don't assess our pain or disfigurement with the neighbors arthritis or cancer. Quite the opposite: we visualize and strive to look as young and slim as the man on the cover of a magazine. Such natural cravings are the very foundation of an ever growing charm and Anti-Aging industry, even in absence of objective standards.

That is exactly the point: if we can't define condition but only Ill-health - we'll never look like that Idol no matter what! Because if we part our condition by its weaning, we'll wait to act until we can define the symptoms, thereby depriving ourselves from gaining and sustaining utmost Vitality and stunning Appearance.

If we consequent in establishing a globally valid definition for absolute condition - we can literally begin to supply of real Health-care, that is caring for the preservation - or revival of the benchmark Health.