Disclaimer: This is mostly my opinion, I haven’t done any research on this topic!

Since I’m studying kinesiology and my department is in the School of Public Health at Maryland, I spend a lot of time researching, thinking and talking about exercise and health. Because of a few conversations I’ve had lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to define health. Not surprisingly, different people think of health differently and I can’t help but think this could contribute to the drastic differences in the health of our population. Our knowledge and beliefs shape our actions which in turn affect our health, and this is where the definition begins for me. The dictionary definition of health is: the absence of illness or injury, or a person’s mental or physical condition. I’m not actually on board with that first part being THE definition of health, and I’ll get into that in a moment. There are several factors that I think are important in defining health.

Health Literacy

I hadn’t though about health literacy at all until I did a quick search for “health” on google and the first website that popped up (that wasn’t popular media crap) was the site for the Department of Health and Human Services. One of their main links is about health literacy, and I think this might actually be one of the most important factors contributing to health behaviors. Having knowledge or knowing how to find information about everything from how diet, exercise, sleep and stress affect your health to when and how to go to the doctor, and resources to help you make positive choices for all of these things are huge factors. Current knowledge in these areas must certainly affect individual behaviors. (How may people exercise because they know they should vs. really like it? Probably not enough…but I know there are a lot of people out there.)

The Absence of Illness or Injury

This one is also important, but here’s why I think it is incorrect to consider this the only definition of health. Many diseases/disorders, particularly chronic ones (cardiovascular/circulatory diseases, diabetes, Alzheimers, liver/kidney diseases, many cancers, etc.) develop over years and decades of poor dietary and/or exercise habits. One bad meal or missing one workout will not cause you to develop these diseases or even have much effect at all for that matter. However, years and years of poor diet, nutrition, excessive alcohol consumption and/or smoking will. Therefore, just because at a given moment in your life you are not diagnosed with a certain disease does not mean that your lifestyle is not negatively affecting your health in a very permanent but temporarily unmeasurable way. Once you have interrupted your body’s function enough to develop diabetes or have a heart attack, you may be able to reduce or eliminate the symptoms of these diseases, but these body systems will NEVER function completely normally again. Don’t forget that EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED so one symptom can lead to many diseases/conditions. (diabetes=kidney problems, neurological dysfunction/limb loss, blindness; Chron’s disease=osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disease).

Maintaining a Heathy Weight

I’m definitely on board with the current trend of accepting yourself for who you are, no matter what. I have to admit though I am a bit torn when it comes to obesity. I don’t intend to body shame anyone, I don’t think obese people should be ashamed of themselves, and I am extremely sympathetic to people struggling with obesity. I’ve read enough research on how obesity affects body system functions, and have trained enough ridiculously hard-working obese clients to recognize that obese people who are working to lose weight are fighting an uphill battle. For many people this has nothing to do with how much or little they are eating and exercising. That said, there are still risks involved in being overweight and obese and losing any amount of weight if you are in these categories will reduce your risk, and exercising and healthy eating will help even if you do not lose a substantial amount of weight.

In a perfect world (as if) people would just not become obese because like all diseases prevention is “easier” than treatment. By the way, not being overweight or obese does not mean everyone walking around should be a Skinny Minnie. At my height, my weight could range from 124-158.4 lbs and still be considered within a healthy range (I’m usually around 138). At 158 I would definitely not call myself skinny, but according to disease statistics I would still not be at a measurable increased risk of disease.

Having a Basic Physical Aptitude

Can you walk up 3 flights of stairs without having to take a break? Can you carry several grocery bags in each hand? Can you reach to the top shelf in your kitchen cabinet? Can you bend down to tie your shoes or pick something up off the floor? If you had to run away from or run after something could you run for 5 minutes? Can you mow your yard with a push mower and shovel snow without being exhausted or injured? Good enough-you don’t need to be in marathon shape to have basic physical aptitude.

Nutrition

This one is a little harder to define because different populations have different needs, and such a wide variety of foods could meet these needs. If you’re meeting the daily value for vitamins and minerals and meeting the macronutrient recommendations from food rather than supplements that’s a good start. Making sure you’re added sugar intake is as low as possible, and fruit and vegetable intake is high.  After thinking about this over the past several weeks, these are the factors that I think are most important to define health. If you think I missed anything or have any comments about what I described here I’d love to hear from you!