Towards
POSITIVE HEALTH
POSITIVE HEALTH
          World Health Organization defines health as follows: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely an absence of diseases or infirmity".
          However, health is not static but fluctuate within a range from well being to various levels of dysfunction. The translation of ill health is often gradual as shown below:
Positive health
Better health
Freedom from sickness
---------------------------
Unrecognized sickness
Mild sickness
Severe Sickness
Death
       It is possible, by increasing health awareness to convert a large population from sickness to positive health.
SOME FACTORS AFFECTING HEALTH
        Health is influenced by a combination of genetic, environmental, social and economic factors related to each other:
- Human Biology: Genes are inherited from parents. We can certainly not choose our parents but can allow our progeny to be born free from many avoidable forms of genetically inherited disorders such as hemophilia, some types of diabetes mellitus, etc., if consanguineous marriages are avoided. Medical examination of prospective bride and bridegroom will be a very welcome step in this direction.
- Environment: The external environment consists of those things one is exposed to after birth e.g. physical, biological, and psychological. Various enteric infections and parasitic diseases due to chemical contamination in soil, food, water and air affect health in various ways.
- Lifestyle: Our lifestyle, personal hygiene, habits and behavior affects our health far more than any other factors. The increasing incidence of cardiovascular diseases, automobile accidents, alcohol or drug abuse, various forms of cancer, suicides and homicides are attributable to our lifestyle.
SOME STEPS TO ACHIEVE POSITIVE HEALTH
- Weight: Being overweight is perhaps the biggest single health problem amongst high and middle-income groups all over the world. Hence
- Maintain your weight within optimum range of your age, height and frame.
- If you are over 40 years, it is better to weigh 10% less than the standard weight.
- Determine the optimum weight and calculate the calories required to maintain the optimum body weight.
- If you are overweight , you have to restrict yourself to at least 300 to 400 calories below the calories calculated from the chart. [More..]
- Alcohol: Alcohol not only provides extra calories without any nutritive value, but also damages liver, muscles, heart nerves, and can predispose to increased blood pressure. Increased automobile accidents from drunken driving are too well known to need any mention. Many individuals whose system is not suited to consumption of alcohol become alcoholics if they drink regularly. The effect of alcohol on their jobs, family life, financial and life in general is unimaginable. Alcoholic Anonymous provides the best help to reform these individuals.
- Tobacco & Smoking: Tobacco in any form is harmful, be it a cigarette, bidi, pipe smoking, or tobacco in form of misri applications or snuff. Tobacco abuse contributes to almost 25-30% of cancers of the body. Tobacco smoking can badly damage lungs causing chronic bronchitis thus reducing the quality of life. [More..]
- Stress Management: Stress up to a point/level can help improve performance. In most individuals, beyond the optimum level, performance steeply deteriorates with increasing stress and resulting anxiety. Hence one must learn to diffuse or reduce stress. [More..]
- Exercises: Increased physical activity has contributed significantly in reducing the incidence of coronary artery diseases in last 2-3 decades. A 30-40 minutes session of any sport, such as tennis, 3-4 days a week can give good exercise, relaxation and feeling of well being. However, cardiologists think that for cardiovascular fitness the exercise has to be a certain speed sustained for a certain length of time. The exercise session should include warm up period, main exercises and cool down period.
- Periodical Medical Check-ups: Periodic medical checkup of those above 45 years of age can help in detecting many ailments at an early stage. Similarly regular checkup of those at risk like siblings and children diabetic, hypertensive or cardiac ailment patients may help in early detection and correction.
- Hygiene and Prophylaxis: [More..]
- Attitude: The most important factor for positive health is attitude towards life. We owe this to our family, our organization, our society, our nation and most of all to ourselves. [More..]
Remember, Positive Health contributes to
- Better performance and management
- Better quality of personal life
- Harmonious relationship in the family, organization, society and nation.
by Apurv B
Credits and Courtesy
DAE Sports and Cultural Council, India
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