Health is the overall well-being of an individual. Various institutions and school of thoughts define health in different ways with the definition given by the WHO being the most accepted worldwide. According to World Health Organization, health is a well-being state which includes three basic components that are, physical, mental and social. There is a slight criticism to this definition from various people although. But the health truly means the complete well-being and not just staying fit and free from illness.
Besides different people may have different perceptions of calling oneself healthy, some might call a person with a strong athletic build to be healthy while others may call a person who performs his/her daily functions efficiently as healthy. The various components of health can be explained one by one as follows:
Physical health
Every individual or human being has the right to stay healthy and fit. It means he/she should be capable of performing his/her routine activities by himself/herself in an efficient manner. There are various internal and external factors that help one to maintain good physical health. These include:
- Proper diet: no health can be maintained without the intake of balanced diet taken in form of regular meals and in the right quantity. The meals should be an appropriate balance of all the essential nutrients. One must also be careful to keep themselves away from consuming the junk foods that are of less nutritional value.
- Sufficient physical activity: another important ingredient to physical fitness is the physical activity which cannot be ignored while targeting good health. Physical activities could be in any form including walking, dancing, and running, taking up outdoor sports, hitting the gyms or even doing out routine work by ourselves. Minimum 30 minutes of physical activity is a must for an adolescent or an adult.
- Lack of disability: one should be free from any sort of physical disability.
- Healthy lifestyle: this includes avoiding unhealthy habits like smoking or using any forms of tobacco, alcohol consumption and taking any form of drugs.
- Proper hygiene: maintain good hygiene and keeping a clean surrounding is also an essential component to keep oneself healthy and free from any sort of infectious diseases.
Mental health:
This component of health essentially includes being completely mentally sound and free from any mental disorders. Besides, it also includes staying away from stress or any mental strain. One should have a good and decent behaviour with mental stability.
Social health:
Social health also has several determinants that include education, occupation, social support or cohesion, gender, class, ethnicity, material circumstances and many more. All these determinants act as indicators of good or bad health as each of them has its own impact on individual’s health in an own unique way. It is very important to become a part of the social system for every human being for his/her survival.
Thus, one should have a complete balance of all the above components to be called healthy. However, there could be some other components like vocational health, emotional health, etc. that could be included while defining the health.
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