ST_OCTOBER_18

OPINION
The Real Meaning of Health
There are many of us who run away with the idea that to
be healthy one needs to keep a balanced diet, exercise
regularly and do regular medical checks. Likewise we
regard health as an individual commitment to ourselves. But
is it?
Since 1946, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has defined
health as a “state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and
not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” As a result,
the body that monitors health globally has been advocating a
universal perspective of health for decades. Alas, it has been
ignored.
by Moira Borg
Dedicated to the many who died for the greed of a few in Genoa
.
For any individual to hope for a healthy existence, he/she must
not only have a healthy supply of food, a decent dwelling and a
job to be able to sustain it but also have the peace of mind that
the world he/she is living in is safe in every sense of the word.
This means no threat to our existence whatsoever.
A cursory glance at our life today puts our health in a very bleak
place indeed even in the most developed of countries. Many
of us do not have a job and many of us who do, either work
back-crashing hours for meagre wages or gingerly hold on
to employments that are as secure as a 20 euro note in the
pockets of a gambler. In many countries this is compounded
by a glaring mismatch between the average citizen’s wage and
the cost of living, leaving many struggling for a decent survival
and having to make do without even the most basic sanitary
requirements let alone the daily healthy nutritious intake and
other necessary health priorities like vaccination. Those who
can afford even good quality standards of living and healthcare,
still cannot guarantee themselves clean air and seas, food free
of pesticides, preservatives/additives or growth enhancers,
safe water or unthreatened streets.
Unfortunately, we have become so self-centred and
individualistic that we have completely forgotten how much
we rely on each other and the world around us to survive.
Relationships have become ‘liquid’ (Bauman, 2000) and
many of us struggle daily with the scourge of loneliness in
an overcrowded world or suffer in insecure and abusive
relationships in a desperate attempt to avoid it. People shoot
at each other or run each other over for no particular reason
both in the real and the virtual worlds, loyalty and honesty
have become pre-history and family has stopped being the
backbone of whatever is left of society since the last episode of
Little House on the Prairie.
And when we are not destroying each other we turn our greedy
aggression to the world around us milking every sap of life
we can out of it for our personal gain. Even though we were
warned time and time again by our scientists of the deleterious
outcome of this senseless ravaging of our planet and worse
still, even though we are living through these outcomes day
after day with every forest fire, every flood, every drought and
every man-made disaster, we still float in the eternal haze of
healthy lifestyles brimming with organic fodder and GI workouts
at the gym.
"
Unfortunately, we have become so
self-centred & individualistic that we have
completely forgotten how much we
rely on each other and the world around
us to survive..."
Dr.Moira Borg is
a medical practitioner in
private practice and a Gestalt
psychotherapist with a speciality
to work with children and young
people. She is also a freelance
medical writer with children and
young people. She is also a
freelance medical writer.
The only way we can have a healthy existence is to appreciate
the importance of respecting the three factions that maintain
it - namely ourselves, each other and the world around us and
most of all to acknowledge that health is about the balance
between the three. Anything other than that is a sheepskin
cover to destruction. ST
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