value of good health essay

Essay on Good Health And Well Being

Students are often asked to write an essay on Good Health And Well Being in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Good Health And Well Being

Importance of good health.

Good health is like a treasure. When we are healthy, we can play, learn, and enjoy life. It means our body is working well, and we feel good. To stay healthy, eating fruits and vegetables, drinking water, and sleeping enough is important.

Exercise for Fitness

Moving our bodies makes us strong and fit. Playing sports, dancing, or even walking are great exercises. They keep our heart healthy and muscles strong. Exercise also makes us feel happy by releasing special chemicals in our brain.

Mental Health Matters

Being healthy is not just about the body but also the mind. Talking about feelings, being kind, and having fun with friends keep our mind healthy. It’s important to relax and not worry too much.

Preventing Sickness

Staying away from germs helps us not get sick. Washing hands, keeping clean, and getting vaccines are ways to fight germs. When we don’t feel well, seeing a doctor is a good idea to get better.

Good health and well-being make life better. Eating right, exercising, being happy, and staying germ-free are keys to staying healthy. Let’s take care of our health every day!

250 Words Essay on Good Health And Well Being

What is good health.

Good health means your body is working as it should, without any pain or illness. When you have good health, you can run, jump, play, and do all your school work without feeling tired or sick. It’s like a well-oiled machine that runs smoothly.

Why is Well Being Important?

Well being is about feeling happy and calm in your mind. It’s just as important as having a strong body. When your well being is taken care of, you can make friends, learn new things, and handle stress better.

Eating Right for Health

To stay healthy, you need to eat all kinds of foods like fruits, vegetables, grains, proteins, and dairy. Imagine your plate as a rainbow, with lots of different colors. Each color gives you different vitamins and minerals to keep you healthy.

Staying Active

Our bodies are made to move. Playing sports, dancing, or just walking your dog are great ways to stay active. When you move, your heart gets stronger and you can concentrate better in class.

Resting Well

Sleep is just as important as food and exercise. When you sleep, your body fixes any damage and gets ready for a new day. Try to get 8-10 hours of sleep each night.

Keeping a Happy Mind

Taking care of your feelings is part of well being. Talk to friends, write in a journal, or draw pictures to express yourself. This keeps your mind happy and healthy.

Good health and well being are about balancing eating right, staying active, resting well, and keeping a happy mind. When all these pieces fit together, you can play, learn, and grow every day.

500 Words Essay on Good Health And Well Being

Good health means your body is working as it should, without any pain or sickness. When you have good health, you can play, work, and learn better. Imagine a car that runs smoothly because all its parts are in top shape. Your body is just like that car. When all parts of your body are in good condition, you feel great and are ready to take on the world.

Why is Good Health Important?

Having good health is very important for everyone. It helps you grow strong and stay fit. When you are healthy, you can play with your friends, focus in class, and not miss school because you are sick. Your body and mind work better when you are healthy, which means you can solve problems easier and enjoy life more.

Eating Right

Eating right is like putting the best fuel in a car. Fruits, vegetables, grains, protein, and dairy products are all good for you. They give you the energy to run, think, and do all the things you love. Eating too much junk food is like putting sand in your car’s gas tank. It can make you feel tired and can lead to sickness.

Being active is another way to keep your body in good shape. Think of it as taking your car for a drive instead of leaving it in the garage all the time. When you run, play sports, or dance, you make your muscles stronger and your heart happy. Exercise can also make you feel happier because it releases chemicals in your brain that make you feel good.

Rest and Relaxation

Rest is just as important as being active. It’s like giving your car a break after a long trip. Sleeping well at night helps your body repair itself and get ready for the next day. Relaxing and taking breaks can also help your mind stay sharp and calm.

Staying Clean

Keeping your body clean is like keeping your car shiny and free of dirt. Bathing, brushing your teeth, and washing your hands can keep germs away. Germs are tiny bugs that can make you sick, so it’s important to stay clean to keep them at bay.

Seeing the Doctor

Going to the doctor is like taking your car for a check-up. The doctor makes sure everything is working right and can help prevent sickness or catch it early when it’s easier to treat. Getting vaccinated is one way doctors help protect you from serious illnesses.

Good health is not just about your body but also about your feelings and thoughts. Talking about your feelings, staying positive, and spending time with friends and family can keep your mind healthy. Just like your body, your mind needs to be taken care of to feel good.

Good health and well-being are like a treasure that helps you live a happy and full life. By eating right, staying active, getting enough rest, keeping clean, seeing the doctor, and taking care of your feelings, you can keep this treasure shining. Remember, taking care of your health is one of the most important things you can do every day!

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Importance Of Good Health (Essay Sample)

The importance of good health.

Good health is crucial to everything we do in our everyday lives. The importance of good health can be clearly seen in how we function as human beings in the daily tasks that define our functionality in the society. Without good health, we are not able to reach our individual potentials and this can hinder us from achieving our personal goals in the social environment that we exist in.

True enough, defining good health moves beyond the physical sense; it also includes emotional and mental. Good health means the different aspects of well-being which are mold together. For one individual to function properly, he or she should be physically fit, as well as emotionally and mentally. Having one missing aspect in an individual’s health can have heavy implications for an individual.

In both home and work, health is also required in building social relationships. If we are unfit to build these connections, it can imply that we are depriving ourselves of social stimulation that can help in improving our outlook and disposition in everything we do. In most cases, it can be said that good health can be equated to an individual’s self-actualization. An individual who is actualized has a nurtured sense of disposition in the society which makes him or her energetic enough to be able to face different problems that may arise during the day.

At home, good health can be a collective concept for it is also crucial to the well-being of the good family. This means that healthy relationships are required in order for families to function as a single organ. Without health, relationships may fall apart and this can bring both short term and long term damages to how we perceive life.

In professional spaces, health is crucial in dealing with different workplace situations and conflicts. If one is unfit in any of the mentioned aspects above, this can heavily affect how an individual becomes productive in the workplace. Of course, good health can be equated to productivity in this context and without it, more conflicts may arise that may be very hard to deal with.

To achieve good health, we as individuals should know the proper steps in nurturing ourselves. We need to be able to take care of ourselves in order to also know how to take care of others around us. Knowing to take the right meals, eat healthy food, drink the proper amount of water and get the right hours of sleep are the basic things that we need to master. What comes after these are more self-conscious steps that can then nourish our mental health; this includes engaging in healthy discussions with other people as well as lively and productive conversations that nurture positivity instead of negativity. We must also know to surround ourselves with the right people so that we can continue living a live with less worry. Emotional health is also a crucial part in us, as individuals. This is heavily influenced by our social relationships as well as our perception of our own selves. The key in ensuring emotional health is to always gauge our feelings and knowing how to deal with it properly. If our own selves are not capable of ensuring all these, seeking our family, friends and even professionals for help is always an option. The worst thing that we can do is to deprive ourselves of good health. Good health is not a myth; it is something that we can rally achieve as long as we put our minds in it and as long as we remember how to properly value ourselves. All it takes is the right perception of our self-worth and some self-esteem.

Health Conditions
Health Products

What is good health?

The word health refers to a state of complete emotional, mental, and physical well-being. Healthcare exists to help people stay well in these key areas of life.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), healthcare costs in the United States were $3.5 trillion in 2017.

However, despite this expenditure, people in the U.S. have a lower life expectancy than people in other developed countries. This is due to a variety of factors, including access to healthcare and lifestyle choices.

Good health is central to handling stress and living a longer, more active life. In this article, we explain the meaning of good health, the types of health a person needs to consider, and how to preserve good health.

What is health?

In 1948, the World Health Organization (WHO) defined health with a phrase that modern authorities still apply.

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

In 1986, the WHO made further clarifications:

“A resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities.”

This means that health is a resource to support an individual’s function in wider society, rather than an end in itself. A healthful lifestyle provides the means to lead a full life with meaning and purpose.

In 2009, researchers publishing in The Lancet defined health as the ability of a body to adapt to new threats and infirmities.

They base this definition on the idea that the past few decades have seen modern science take significant strides in the awareness of diseases by understanding how they work, discovering new ways to slow or stop them, and acknowledging that an absence of pathology may not be possible.

Mental and physical health are probably the two most frequently discussed types of health.

Spiritual, emotional, and financial health also contribute to overall health. Medical experts have linked these to lower stress levels and improved mental and physical well-being.

People with better financial health, for example, may worry less about finances and have the means to buy fresh food more regularly. Those with good spiritual health may feel a sense of calm and purpose that fuels good mental health.

Health equity resources

Visit our dedicated hub for an in-depth look at social disparities in health and what we can do to correct them.

Physical health

A person who has good physical health is likely to have bodily functions and processes working at their peak.

This is not only due not only to an absence of disease. Regular exercise, balanced nutrition , and adequate rest all contribute to good health. People receive medical treatment to maintain the balance, when necessary.

Physical well-being involves pursuing a healthful lifestyle to decrease the risk of disease. Maintaining physical fitness, for example, can protect and develop the endurance of a person’s breathing and heart function, muscular strength, flexibility, and body composition.

Looking after physical health and well-being also involves reducing the risk of an injury or health issue, such as:

minimizing hazards in the workplace
using contraception when having sex
practicing effective hygiene
avoiding the use of tobacco, alcohol, or illegal drugs
taking the recommended vaccines for a specific condition or country when traveling

Good physical health can work in tandem with mental health to improve a person’s overall quality of life.

For example, mental illness, such as depression, may increase the risk of drug use disorders, according to a 2008 study . This can go on to adversely affect physical health.

Mental health

According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, mental health refers to a person’s emotional, social, and psychological well-being. Mental health is as important as physical health as part of a full, active lifestyle.

It is harder to define mental health than physical health because many psychological diagnoses depend on an individual’s perception of their experience.

With improvements in testing, however, doctors are now able to identify some physical signs of some types of mental illness in CT scans and genetic tests.

Good mental health is not only categorized by the absence of depression , anxiety , or another disorder. It also depends on a person’s ability to:

bounce back after difficult experiences and adapt to adversity
balance different elements of life, such as family and finances
feel safe and secure
achieve their full potential

Physical and mental health have strong connections. For example, if a chronic illness affects a person’s ability to complete their regular tasks, it may lead to depression and stress. These feelings could be due to financial problems or mobility issues.

A mental illness, such as depression or anorexia , can affect body weight and overall function.

It is important to approach “health” as a whole, rather than as a series of separate factors. All types of health are linked, and people should aim for overall well-being and balance as the keys to good health.

Find out how mental health can affect physical health here .

Factors for good health

Good health depends on a wide range of factors.

Genetic factors

A person is born with a variety of genes. In some people, an unusual genetic pattern or change can lead to a less-than-optimum level of health. People may inherit genes from their parents that increase their risk for certain health conditions.

Environmental factors

Environmental factors play a role in health. Sometimes, the environment alone is enough to impact health. Other times, an environmental trigger can cause illness in a person who has an increased genetic risk of a particular disease.

Access to healthcare plays a role, but the WHO suggest that the following factors may have a more significant impact on health than this:

where a person lives
the state of the surrounding environment
their income
their level of education
employment status

It is possible to categorize these as follows:

The social and economic environment : This may include the financial status of a family or community, as well as the social culture and quality of relationships.
The physical environment : This includes which germs exist in an area, as well as pollution levels.
A person’s characteristics and behaviors : A person’s genetic makeup and lifestyle choices can affect their overall health.

According to some studies, the higher a person’s socioeconomic status (SES), the more likely they are to enjoy good health, have a good education, get a well-paid job, and afford good healthcare in times of illness or injury.

They also maintain that people with low socioeconomic status are more likely to experience stress due to daily living, such as financial difficulties, marital disruption, and unemployment.

Social factors may also impact on the risk of poor health for people with lower SES, such as marginalization and discrimination.

A low SES often means reduced access to healthcare. A 2018 study in Frontiers in Pharmacology indicated that people in developed countries with universal healthcare services have longer life expectancies than those in developed countries without universal healthcare.

Cultural issues can affect health. The traditions and customs of a society and a family’s response to them can have a good or bad impact on health.

According to the Seven Countries Study , researchers studied people in select European countries and found that those who ate a healthful diet had a lower 20-year death rate.

The study indicated that people who ate a healthful diet are more likely to consume high levels of fruits, vegetables, and olives than people who regularly consume fast food.

The study also found that people who followed the Mediterranean diet had a lower 10-year all-cause mortality rate. According to the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , this diet can help protect a person’s heart and reduce the risk of several diseases, including type 2 diabetes , cancer , and diseases that cause the brain and nerves to break down.

How a person manages stress will also affect their health. According to the National Institute of Mental Health , people who smoke tobacco, drink alcohol, or take illicit drugs to manage stressful situations are more likely to develop health problems than those who manage stress through a healthful diet, relaxation techniques, and exercise.

Preserving health

The best way to maintain health is to preserve it through a healthful lifestyle rather than waiting until sickness or infirmity to address health problems. People use the name wellness to describe this continuous state of enhanced well-being.

The WHO define wellness as follows:

“Wellness is the optimal state of health of individuals and groups. There are two focal concerns: the realization of the fullest potential of an individual physically, psychologically, socially, spiritually, and economically, and the fulfillment of one’s roles and expectations in the family, community, place of worship, and other settings.”

Wellness promotes active awareness of and participating in measures that preserve health, both as an individual and in the community. Maintaining wellness and optimal health is a lifelong, daily commitment.

Steps that can help people attain wellness include:

eating a balanced, nutritious diet from as many natural sources as possible
engaging in at least 150 minutes of moderate to high-intensity exercise every week, according to the American Heart Association
screening for diseases that may present a risk
learning to manage stress effectively
engaging in activities that provide purpose
connecting with and caring for other people
maintaining a positive outlook on life
defining a value system and putting it into action

The definition of peak health is highly individual, as are the steps a person may take to get there. Every person has different health goals and a variety of ways to achieve them.

It may not be possible to avoid disease altogether. However, a person should do as much as they can to develop resilience and prepare the body and mind to deal with illnesses as they arise.

Learn more about the health benefits of socializing here.

Last medically reviewed on April 20, 2020

Mental Health
Public Health
Nutrition / Diet
Health Equity

How we reviewed this article:

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American Heart Association recommendations for physical activity in adults and kids. (2018). https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/fitness/fitness-basics/aha-recs-for-physical-activity-in-adults
Ancel keys: Launching the seven countries study. (2016). http://www.sevencountriesstudy.com/about-the-study/investigators/ancel-keys/
Constitution. (1948). http://www.who.int/about/mission/en/
Davis, L., et al. (2008). Major depression and comorbid substance use disorders [Abstract]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18281835
Goodman, N. (2015). The impact of employment on the health status and health care costs of working-age people with disabilities. http://www.leadcenter.org/system/files/resource/downloadable_version/impact_of_employment_health_status_health_care_costs_0.pdf
Gonzales, S., et al. (2019). How does U.S. life expectancy compare to other countries. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-life-expectancy-compare-countries/#item-start
Health promotion glossary update. (n.d.). https://www.who.int/healthpromotion/about/HPR%20Glossary_New%20Terms.pdf
Lăcătușu, C.-M., et al. (2019). The Mediterranean Diet: From an environment-driven food culture to an emerging medical prescription. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6466433/
Pampel, F. C., et al. (2011). Socioeconomic disparities in health behaviours. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3169799/
Ranabhat, C. L., et al. (2018). The influence of universal health coverage on life expectancy at birth (LEAB) and healthy life expectancy (HALE): A multi-country cross-sectional study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6153391/
Ross, C. E. & Mirowsky, J. (1995, September). Does employment affect health? https://www.jstor.org/stable/2137340?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
The Ottawa charter for health promotion. (1986). http://www.who.int/healthpromotion/conferences/previous/ottawa/en/
Weaver, R. (2012). Achieving the eight dimensions of wellness during national wellness week. http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/wellness-week-healthy-lifestyle-0912125
What is health? The ability to adapt [Abstract]. (2009). http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60456-6/abstract
What is mental health? (2019). https://www.mentalhealth.gov/basics/what-is-mental-health
Yin, S. (2007, November). Gender disparities in health and mortality http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2007/genderdisparities.aspx

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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Nursing — Good Health And Wellness

Good Health and Wellness

Categories: Nursing

About this sample

Words: 573 |

Published: Mar 13, 2024

Words: 573 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

The importance of good health and wellness, the impact of good health and wellness, achieving and maintaining good health and wellness, the broader implications of good health and wellness.

In addition to physical health , mental and emotional well-being are equally important. Practices such as mindfulness, meditation, and therapy can help manage stress and improve overall mental health.
Building a strong support network and nurturing meaningful relationships also contribute to emotional wellness.
Furthermore, it is essential to prioritize self-care and relaxation. Taking time for oneself, engaging in hobbies, and setting boundaries are crucial for maintaining a balanced and healthy lifestyle.
Lastly, regular check-ups with healthcare professionals and staying informed about one's health are vital for early detection and prevention of illness.

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Health Essay

Essay on Health

Health is wealth. It is the biggest asset we need every day to meet our goals. Previously, the definition of health was the proper functioning of our organ systems. As time passed, the definition has changed. Good health now includes the physical and mental wellbeing of a person. A person can be physically fit but mentally disturbed due to the circumstances he is facing. The same can happen when someone is suffering from physical illnesses but is mentally strong.

Maintaining proper health is the prime concern these days. This is a competitive era where you cannot stop. The moment you stop you will be replaced by a better option. This is why everyone is running in the rat race without thinking about their wellbeing. The compromise towards health becomes a costly affair later. In the cities, people are more affected by mental issues than physical ones. Constant stress and lack of physical activities contribute to the problem.

Proper health comprises many factors. It includes good food, proper routine, good sleeping habits, and eating habits. Apart from these personal traits, many external factors also control your wellbeing. People in the villages stay physically stronger due to freshness in the air, physical activities, and good food. People in the urban areas, on the contrary, prefer eating unhealthy food, lack physical agility, and cannot handle mental stress properly. In the same context, urban settlement has a better lifestyle and healthcare system. Considering all the components, a person needs to give equal importance to the factors and maintain a balance.

The elements of good health are physical and mental fitness. If both are maintained, a person will enjoy a better life. How can we achieve that state? First, we have to find out the factors influencing physical health. We have to learn about the lifestyle diseases that affect our health and check the ways to avoid or manage them. Secondly, we have to eat good food and maintain a healthy diet. We need to ensure a balanced diet and good food habits to provide nutrition to our systems. In this aspect, we also have to find out the harmful foods we generally prefer eating and avoid them. Regular exercise is the third most important part of good health. When we are physically active, our muscles remain functional. We get hurt very less and also recover faster. We can also maintain our body balance better when we are involved in physical activities.

The next phase is mental happiness. What makes us happy? One can be happy watching TV all the time. Sitting on the couch all day long can also make someone happy but is it a healthy choice? This type of lifestyle choice should be immediately avoided. Choosing a sedentary lifestyle is nothing but an invitation to different diseases. The current urban population is suffering from weight-related issues. Being overweight also makes the situation worse. Lifestyle diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol elevation, cardiovascular diseases, etc develop at a young age.

We also need to make better choices when it comes to mental health. Playing sports with your buddies will help you relax and de-stress. You can also take a walk in the park and enjoy the greenery. Avoid spending more time on the screen and try to develop a hobby that suits you. In this way, you can become happier and stay healthier.

A person also needs to choose better social factors to remain free from social stigmas. Cognitive health and social health are equally important. Adding more stress will not be the solution. Keep exercising physically and mentally to remain fit and enjoy good health and longer life. Make your home stress-free with good habits and keep everyone healthy.

FAQs on Health Essay

1. What are the Prime Elements Included in Good Health?

The prime elements of good health are physical health, mental health, and social health. A person needs to be physically and mentally fit in a healthy environment. A society should also provide a healthy environment for a person to remain stress-free and enjoy life. Even though an ideal society does not exist, it is not hard to maintain a healthy lifestyle. These elements should be maintained properly to enjoy overall good health and survive in this competitive world. It is important for all family members.

2. Why is Mental Health Also Important?

Previously mental health was not included in the wellbeing of a person. Now that we have found the direct relationship between physical and mental health, it has become an important factor to consider. Many surveys suggest that mental health in a society is ignored. People are less happy when they are surrounded by many responsibilities. Circumstances also make a person sad and mentally unfit. If this continues, a person becomes prone to physical illnesses. Stress is a major reason for mental illnesses. By educating people regarding the importance of mental health, we can avoid such issues.

3. How Can We Teach the Importance of Mental Wellness?

From the very beginning, kids should be taught what mental wellness is. They should play outside, have fun with their friends, play, get hurt, and learn what mental wellness is. Adults also need proper guidance to understand the importance of mental wellness. They should maintain a proper balance between personal and professional life to stay happy. All we have to remember is an individual laughing might not be happy. We need to find out what makes us happy.

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Open access
Published: 18 March 2020

A philosophy of health: life as reality, health as a universal value

Julian M. Saad ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9323-1021 1 &
James O. Prochaska 1

Palgrave Communications volume 6 , Article number: 45 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Health humanities
Medical humanities

Emphases on biomarkers (e.g. when making diagnoses) and pharmaceutical/drug methods (e.g. when researching/disseminating population level interventions) in primary care evidence philosophies of health (and healthcare) that reduce health to the biological level. However, with chronic diseases being responsible for the majority of all cause deaths and being strongly linked to health behavior and lifestyle; predominantly biological views are becoming increasingly insufficient when discussing this health crisis. A philosophy that integrates biological, behavioral, and social determinants of health could benefit multidisciplinary discussions of healthy publics. This manuscript introduces a Philosophy of Health by presenting its first five principles of health. The philosophy creates parallels among biological immunity, health behavior change, social change by proposing that two general functions— precision and variation —impact population health at biological, behavioral, and social levels. This higher-level of abstraction is used to conclude that integrating functions, rather than separated (biological) structures drive healthy publics. A Philosophy of Health provides a framework that can integrate existing theories, models, concepts, and constructs.

Effects of a personalized nutrition program on cardiometabolic health: a randomized controlled trial

Determinants of behaviour and their efficacy as targets of behavioural change interventions

Associations of dietary patterns with brain health from behavioral, neuroimaging, biochemical and genetic analyses

A philosophy of health.

What is health? Is it a state of the body or the mind? Is health primarily a natural, biological state or a holistic, value-laden state? Naturalistic and holistic philosophies of health have provided very important, but very different, perspectives of population health. Naturalistic views (e.g. as seen in Boorse, 1997 ) provide insight into physical, natural, biological, or physiological processes that are tangible (in the material sense), observable, and measurable with modern technology. Complementarily, holistic views contend that value-laden phenomena (e.g. vital goals, meaning, and purpose) play a central role in population health (Nordenfeldt, 2007 ).

A dialog, or as we see it, an important dialectic among naturalistic and holistic perspectives plays out between the Biostatistical Theory of Health (BST) and the Holistic Theory of Health (HTH). The BST posits that a person is healthy if and only if, all natural organs function normally given a statistically normal environment (Boorse, 1997 ). The HTH posits that a person is healthy if and only if (given standard circumstances) he/she has the ability to attain their vital goals (Nordenfeldt, 2007 ).

In addition to defining health, each philosophy defines disease. The BST poses that disease is the internal state of impairment to the normal functioning of organs (Boorse, 1997 ). In the HTH, an organ dysfunction is a disease if and only if the organ’s process reduces the person’s ability to pursue vital goals or life-purpose (Nordenfelt, 2007 ). In BST health is the absence of disease; and in HTH, health is not the absence of biological disease, but is the whole person’s ability to function in relation to vital goals.

Both naturalistic and holistic perspectives guide important observations of health and disease. When one considers health through the BST one pays close attention to the functions of the internal, biological functioning of the human being. When one considers health through the HTH, one pays close attention to the functioning of an individual, in relation to their external, societal/cultural functions. Is there a hybrid model that accounts for both internal and external functioning?

Wakefield’s ( 2014 ) harmful dysfunction analysis (HDA) creates a hybrid model that integrates natural- and value-laden phenomena when conceptualizing disease. HDA asserts that a person suffers from a disorder/disease if (1) the condition causes harm (as judged by the standards of the person’s culture); or if (2) the person’s internal, natural processes cannot perform normal functioning (as judged by the standards set by evolution). HDA creates a hybrid model that can integrate perspectives of the BST (i.e. by considering internal organ functioning); and the HTH (i.e. by considering external societal/goal functioning). However, while HDA may define health processes in relation to disease, it serves primarily as an integrative model of disease . Is there an integrative model of health that can account for natural and value-laden functions?

Schroeder ( 2012 ) identifies a significant, common thread among these competing (or perhaps complementing) philosophies: functionalism . The researcher suggests that each philosophy is concerned with the functioning of organisms. Although the BST, HTH, and the HDA might not agree on which functions inform the first principles of health, Schroder ( 2012 ) uses higher-level abstraction to identify one common first principle: the state of functioning in an organism impacts its state of health . When paralleling the three philosophies based upon functioning one might observe that (1) BST declares an individual healthy if its organs function normally; (2) HTH declares an individual healthy if he/she can function in relation to vital goals; and (3) HDA declares an individual unhealthy if internal mechanisms cannot perform natural, evolutionary functions, and/or when a condition prevents a person from functioning in relation to goals/norms/values. Through this higher-level abstraction, an integration of seemingly separate philosophies of health is made possible.

Learning from leaders in the field

As we attend to these philosophies of health, we too observe how discussions about functions and functioning produce integrative perspectives. Although a definition of “function” is not explicitly stated in the above research, it appears that Nordenfeldt ( 2007 ), Boorse ( 1997 ), Wakefield ( 2014 ), and Schroeder ( 2012 ) are each discussing functions as pre-existent (i.e. either from evolution, personal goal-setting, cultural tradition) processes - with - purposes . Whether one is describing a value-laden function (e.g. decision-making in pursuit of a valuable career) or an evolutionary-biological function (e.g. the heart beating for circulation), each process (i.e. decision-making processes or cardiac processes) serves identifiable purposes (e.g. maintained financial stability or maintained blood flow). Whether an organ is functioning normally in relation to the body or a human being is functioning in relation to vital goals, it appears that both perspectives consider if an active “process” (i.e. an organ’s activity, an individual’s activity) can express its “purpose” (i.e. evolutionary-purpose, life-purpose).

In the present manuscript we will propose that naturalistic and holistic perspectives can be integrated within a single philosophy of health. We will propose two universal functions—termed precision and variation —that can account for both natural functions and value-laden functions of the existing philosophies. This functional language will support a higher level of abstraction that integrates, rather than separates, biological functions, behavioral functions, and social functions under A Philosophy of Health.

The need for new perspectives in population health

The chronic disease crisis beckons the need for an updated philosophy of health that can account for biological, behavioral, and social functioning. Why? Chronic diseases, which account for 60% of all-cause deaths worldwide (Chartier and Cawthorpe, 2016 ), do not emerge from naturalistic, biological, or physical contact with an illness. Rather, chronic diseases do emerge in biological functions (e.g. tumor proliferation in an organ) after prolonged contact with health risk behaviors and lifestyle factors that active the conditions (Mokdad et al., 2018 ; Edington, 2009 ; Li et al., 2018 ). Chronic diseases are not curable by purely naturalistic or biological means (e.g. pharmaceuticals). Rather, some diseases may be effectively prevented or intervened on through healthy behavior (Dansinger et al., 2005 ; Daubenmier et al., 2007 ).

Population health risk behaviors are unique determinants of population health because researchers can actively observe how they simultaneously alter biological functioning (e.g. chronic smoking alters cells in lung tissue), behavioral functioning (e.g. chronic smoking alters decision-making and daily habits) and social functioning (e.g. chronic smoking creates an economic, social, and healthcare burden) of the population. These behaviors not only have biological, behavioral, and social implications for the individual doing the behavior, but also have intergenerational and interpersonal effects. The individual who binges on refined sugar not only puts themselves at risk of diabetes, but can put their future offspring at risk. The individual who smokes two packs of cigarettes per day not only puts themselves at risk of lung cancer, but can put their housemates at risk of lung cancer from second-hand smoke. Therefore, the chronic disease crisis is neither purely naturalistic, nor purely value-laden; rather it reflects an integration of natural and value-laden phenomena. There remains a real need for principles of health that can integrate existing naturalistic and holistic perspectives of population health.

The principles

Since April 7, 1948, the Constitution of the World Health Organization ( 2010 ) has utilized an intuitive definition of health by suggesting that health is “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being.” While this definition might be intuitive and even accessible to a wide audience; the defininition is not necessarily researchable across health disciplines. Integrating principles of health might begin with a common-sense definition of health that can also be upheld across existing naturalistic and holistic perspectives. Without operationally defining functions that drive physical, mental, and social well-being, it is a challenge for multidisciplinary collaborators to unite under the WHO mission. Further, without a common definition of health, important communications from patients to doctors, from subjects to researchers, from researchers to collaborators, and from peer-reviewers to peer-reviewees, can become fragmented or lost in translation. In the proceeding sections, a common-sense definition of health is used to present the first principles of A Philosophy of Health.

Principle 1: “Health” is the state of maintainable-ease of functioning . A “disease” is a state of prolonged-dysfunction that prevents ease

Chronic diseases emerge from prolonged exposure to dysfunctional behaviors like smoking, alcohol abuse, unhealthy diet, and inactivity (Mokdad et al., 2018 ) that also create dysfunctional expressions of life functions. Smoking creates dysfunctional breathing; alcohol abuse creates dysfunctional drinking; sugar binging creates dysfunctional eating; and sedentary behavior creates dysfunctional moving. When these health risk behaviors lead to chronic disease, they have already prolonged dysfunctional breathing, drinking, eating, and/or moving.

The chronic smoker breathes in smoke so frequently that he no longer experiences an ease-of-breathing. Rather, his breathing becomes short and shallow. Prior to the emergence of lung tumors, the chronic smoker prolongs dysfunctional patterns of breathing. The “couch potato” sits so frequently that he no longer experiences an ease-of-movement. Rather his movement becomes rigid and limited. Prior to the emergence of cardiovascular dysfunction or obesity, the sedentary person prolongs dysfunctional patterns of movement.

If chronic smoking facilitates prolonged-dysfunction in breathing, and sedentary behavior facilitates prolonged-dysfunction in movement, what do functional breathing and moving look like? Healthy breathing and moving (as well as eating and drinking) are characteristic of an ease of one’s functioning that can be maintained in normal conditions. For example, the chronic smoker and the “couch potato” might report momentary-ease in breathing and posture when engaging in their health risk behaviors; but they do not maintain that ease outside of smoking or sitting. Conversely, the yogi might report that their yoga practices expose them to momentary dis-ease in breathing and moving that lead to maintainable-ease in breathing and movement in everyday life. In contrast to disease as a prolonged-dysfunction, healthy functioning can be commonly sensed as a maintainable - ease of functioning .

When observing a disease, perhaps we are observing a prolonged-dysfunction that prevents ease. Rather than define health as the absence of disease (as seen in BST), notice here how we instead define disease in relation to health; and we define health in relation to maintainability , ease , and functioning . Consideration of “maintainable-ease of functioning” will allow us to consider how not all “dis-ease” is bad (i.e. exposure to acute dis-ease/stress maintains healthy functioning in the long-term); and not all “ease” is good (i.e. avoidance of stress and prolonged “comfort” creates fragility seen in sedentary behavior). We propose that:

Dysfunction parallels a state of “dis-ease”; and prolonged -dysfunction parallels the state of Disease.

Function parallels a state of “ease”; and maintainable-ease of functioning parallels the state of Health.

This definition of health will be applied in the proceeding principles to integrate naturalistic and holistic perspectives of population health.

Principle 2: Health emerges from maintainable-ease of functioning at multiple levels . Maintainable-ease of functioning in the general population can be observed at the level of the cell , the self , and the society simultaneously

Cooperation across multiple levels of functioning is required for the organization and adaptation of living systems (Nowak and Sigmund, 2005 ; Antonucci and Webster, 2014 ). When developing an integrative model of health, it is important to consider how biological cells, individuals, and the larger society simultaneously play a role in population health (Xavier da Silveira dos Santos and Liberali, 2019 ; Antonucci and Webster, 2014 ). In this philosophy, we define health from three levels: cells , selves, and societies . What happens when these levels do not function in cooperation?

When the functioning of cells disrupts the functioning of the self, a state dis-ease in the self can follow. For example, prolonged dysfunction in autoimmune conditions can lead to prolonged dysfunction for the (individual’s sense of) self by triggering depression, decreased motivation, or anxiety (Lougee et al., 2000 ; Garud et al., 2009 ). The reverse can also be true. When the functioning of the self (i.e. one individual) disrupts the functioning of their cells, a state dis-ease in the cells can also follow. For example, prolonged sugar binging and addictive eating can lead to prolonged high blood sugar and pancreatic dysfunction seen in diabetes (De Koning et al., 2011 ; Imamura et al., 2015 ). Cells and selves are not separate.

When the functioning of the self disrupts the functioning of the society we observe a state dis-ease in the society. For example, one person’s unprotected sex with multiple partners can also lead to epidemics and social conflicts. The reverse can also be true. When the functioning of the society disrupts the functioning of the individual, a state dis-ease in the self can follow. For example, dysfunctional social conditions (as seen in Rutter, 1998 ), can lead to prolonged psychological and behavioral dysfunctions of individuals. Selves and societies are not separate.

When the functioning of society disrupts the functioning of cells, a state of dis-ease in the cells can also follow. For example, prolonged dysfunction in society in the form of misguided values about cleanliness, can lead to over-sanitization practices that create superbugs and antibiotic-resistant bacteria (Zaccheo et al., 2017 ; Finkelstein et al., 2014 ; Bower and Daeschel, 1999 ). The reverse can also be true. When the functioning of cells disrupts the functioning of the society, a state of dis-ease in the society can follow. Prolonged dysfunction in cells from naturally occurring parasites (e.g. Yersinia pestis [Cui et al., 2013 ]) can lead to prolonged dysfunctions like the economic collapse following 14th century Black Death (Haensch et al., 2010 ). Cells and societies are not separate.

What does health look like when these levels work together? Recent reports on the Blue Zones (i.e. the areas of the world where populations live significantly longer and healthier than the average) demonstrate that healthy functioning at these levels enhances physical longevity and mental wellbeing in populations (Buettner, 2012 ; Poulain et al., 2013 ). Buettner ( 2012 ) reports on how Blue-Zone populations intentionally and habitually enrich their physical bodies with healthy eating and physical activity. In addition to integrating physical and behavioral practices, these communities also integrate behavioral and social practices, such as, goal-setting, meditations/prayer, social engagement, pursuit of purpose, and community gathering. Humor is used by individuals and groups as a means to practice ease when challenges present themselves (Buettner, 2012 ). Blue Zone communities place value upon physical/natural, behavioral and social processes, generating them intentionally and habitually.

Both states of ease and dis-ease can teach us about the contributions of cells, selves, and societies to population health. Although it is important to be able to observe the levels separately to describe their contributions, it is also important to consider how the levels integrate to impact healthy publics. We acknowledge that meaningful changes can be observed above and below these levels (e.g. at the level of the biosphere and genome). However, this initial paper will introduce levels that are most proximal and accessible to the experience of a general readership (Fig. 1 ).

Principle 3: Health emerges from systems whose primary purpose is to generate maintainable-ease of functioning at a respective level

We propose that systems exist at each level with the purpose of generating maintainable-ease of functioning at that level. The biological immune system, an individual’s system of health behaviors, and the social system will be observed as systems that generate maintainable-ease of functioning in cells, selves, and societies respectively (Fig. 2 ).

Principle 3a: The biological immune system is directly responsible for maintainable-ease of functioning at the level of the cell

Throughout the course of human evolution, the complexity and biodiversity of the human body continued to increase (Rodríguez et al., 2012 ). What keeps the trillions of cells and microorganisms in cooperation in a human body? The biological immune system maintains functional cells (Rodríguez et al., 2012 ). Although it is documented that the functioning of the biological immune system has implications for behavioral functioning (Ader, 1974 , 2000 ; Johnston et al., 1992 ; CDC, 2016 ) and social functioning (CDC, 2016 ; Reidel, 2005 ; Cutler and Miller, 2005 ) the system’s primary purpose is supporting functioning in the cellular/biological system.

Principle 3b: Health behavior is directly responsible for maintainable-ease of functioning at the level of the self

Throughout the course of time, the complexity of human behavior, has continued to increase (Boulding and Khalil, 2002 ). What keeps an individual in a state of balance during times of rapid change? One’s system of health behaviors (e.g. one’s practices of breathing, drinking, eating, and moving) maintain a functional self. Although it is well documented that the behavior of the individual impacts biological functioning (Fadel, 2013 , 2015 ) and social functioning (Omer et al., 2009 ), one’s system of health behaviors directly impacts one’s experience of (or one’s ‘sense of’) their “self”.

Principle 3c: The social system is directly responsible for maintainable-ease of functioning at the level of the society

Throughout history, the social diversity of human societies continued to increase. During periods of rapid increases in social diversity and cultural integration, what supported cooperation in the society? Social systems (e.g. public governments, private social organizations, religious/spiritual organizations) emerge to maintain a functional society. Although it is well documented that a social system can impact biological functioning (CDC, 2016 ; Riedel, 2005 ; Cutler and Miller, 2005 ) and behavioral functioning (Buettner, 2012 ), the social system’s primary role is to maintain functions at the level of the society.

Principle 3d: By considering health as maintainable-ease of functioning generated by systems , we have the ability generalize health across levels

To observe health at the level of the cell, the self, and the society simultaneously, we consider systems that support maintainable-ease of biological, behavioral, and social functioning. The biological immune system, an individual’s system of health behaviors, and the social system make meaningful contributions to the functioning of cells, selves, and societies, respectively. While these systems are not the only systems that impact each level (e.g. one’s cardiovascular system impacts cells, one’s “personality” impacts the self, the environment impacts society), the biological immune system, health behavior, and the social system have great implications for population health from their respective levels; and they can be operationalized at these levels based upon their functions .

By considering health as maintainable-ease of functioning (rather than maintained biological structures) at multiple levels, we set a point of reference from which to integrate important determinants of population health. When taking the structuralist’s perspective, the biological immune system, health behavior, and social systems appear as distinctly separated. When taking a functionalist’s perspective, the biological immune system (i.e. the integration of host defense functions and microbiota functions), one’s (system of) health behaviors (i.e. the integration of decision-making/executive functions and habits/habitual life functions), and the social system (i.e. the integration of population values and population behaviors) appear together in A Philosophy of Health.

Principle 4: Each system employs two general functions— variation and precision —to generate maintainable-ease of functioning at a level

The functionalist perspective allows us to observe systems based upon their functions . The biological immune system will be observed as an integration of host defense functions and microbiota functions (Hooper and Littman Macpherson, 2012 ); (2) an individual’s system of health behaviors will be observed as an integration of decisions/executive functions and habits/habitual life functions (de Bruin et al., 2016 ; Verplankern, 2005 ; Norman et al., 1998 ; Prochaska et al., 1994 ; Prochaska et al., 1991 ); and the social system will be observed as an integration of actively functioning values and population-wide behaviors that function in relation to those values (Dowling and Pfeffer, 1975 ; Cotgrove and Duff, 1981 ).

By researching the role of these functions at each level, we distilled two general functions of each system: variation and precision. Variation appears in the functions of each system that generate a range of abilities, the “varied-abilities”, that sustain health in presently changing conditions. The microbiota, habits/habitual life functions and population behaviors will be observed (in Principle 4a) as the variation-functions of the biological immune system, health behavior, and the social system, respectively. Precision appears in those functions that prioritize and organize the patterns of variation that can sustain health at a level in future, changing conditions. The host-defense functions, decision-making/executive functions, and values systems will be observed (in Principle 4b) as the precision-functions in the biological immune system, health behavior, and the social system, respectively.

Consideration of a complementary relationship among precision and variation is not novel. Precision and variation have been discussed as central to the development of neural and biological systems (Hiesinger and Bassem, 2018 ). Discussions of precision and variation have also provided important insight into research on the biological immune system (Albert-Vega et al., 2018 ; Brodin et al., 2015 ). Through this philosophy, one can go beyond biological systems to observe how precision (in the form of host-defense functions, decision-making/executive functions, and values) and variation (in the form of microbiota functions, habits/habitual life functions, and population-wide behaviors) integrate to generate to maintainable-ease of functioning in cells, selves, and societies simultaneously (Fig. 3 ).

Principle 4a: Variation is responsible for generating the range of abilities, the “varied-abilities”, that can express ease-of-functioning in presently changing conditions

Without functional variation, life is fragile because the present environment is always changing (Taleb and Blyth, 2011 ). Fragile systems’ inability to experience changing conditions (in part) relates to limited variability. Conversely, adaptive system’s ability to experience changing conditions (in part) relates to functional variability (Taleb, 2012 ). When one microorganism in the microbiome takes over, biological fragility reflects a state of infection. When one habit takes over, behavioral fragility reflects a state of an addiction/dependence. When one population behavior takes over (e.g. when economic participation or access to food is restricted to a small percentage of the population) social fragility reflects a state of social/civil unrest.

The human microbiota is comprised of trillions of microorganisms, such as bacteria, fungi, and viruses. When variability in the human microbiota exists, an ease of functioning, or “homeostasis” in cells can be expressed in the present biological/ecological environment (Parfrey and Knight, 2012 ; Bogaert et al., 2011 ; Claesson et al., 2011 ). Research demonstrates that variation in the microbiota impacts the health of human cells by metabolizing complex carbohydrates, converting proteins to neural signals, and modulating diurnal rhythms that maintain biological homeostasis (Clemente et al., 2012 ; Rothe and Blaut, 2012 ; Blaut and Clavel, 2007 ; De Vadder et al., 2014 ). When variation in the microbiota is dramatically limited or changed (e.g. following antibiotic overuse), cellular tissue in the human body is fragile and vulnerable to infections, allergies, and inflammatory outbreaks (Francino, 2016 ).

When one’s habitual life functions (e.g. breathing, drinking, eating, and moving) and one’s healthy habits (e.g. one’s weekly exercise schedule, or weekly meal preparation) can be expressed freely, an ease of functioning is felt by one-self in the present environment. When life functions are no longer expressed with ease (e.g. breathing and movement are compromised due to prolonged sedentary lifestyle), or when a single habit takes over one’s lifestyle (e.g. smokes breaks “must” occur every 30 min), an individual is vulnerable to stressful outbreaks and chronic states (Al’Absi, 2011 ; Conrad et al., 2007 ; Suess et al., 1980 ; León and Sheen, 2003 ; Parrott, 1999 ; Koob, 2008 ).

When the basic human rights in a society are preserved in the present (e.g. right to life, freedom of speech; right to property), human populations have the ability to freely engage in the population - wide behaviors (e.g. health behaviors, social behaviors, economic behaviors) that support a functioning society. Health behaviors drive health and longevity. Social behaviors drive communication and cooperation. Economic behaviors drive goods and resources. When these population-wide behaviors are chronically restricted in a population (e.g. poor access to health care, oppression of free-speech, economic crash), societies become vulnerable to social/civil unrest [as commented historically by Victor Frankl ( 1985 ), Alexander Solzhenitsyn ( 2003 ), Franklin D. Roosevelt ( 1941 ), and Dr. Martin Luther King ( 1985 )].

Variation is essential so that a system has varied-abilities that can express ease-of-functioning in present environmental conditions . Dramatic and prolonged restrictions to variation in the microbiota, habits/habitual life functions, and population-wide behaviors characterize fragile and vulnerable states in cells, selves, and societies. Conversely, functional-variation supports resilience, robustness, and antifragility (Taleb, 2012 ). This does not mean that infinite variation is desirable; however, in this philosophy, precision is responsible for organizing expressions of variation so that the system does not degrade into unpredictably random variation or chaos (see Principle 4b).

Principle 4b: Precision is responsible for prioritizing and organizing the patterns of variation that maintain ease-of-functioning in future, changing conditions

Some environmental changes are too challenging for ease to be expressed in the present. However, following an exposure to challenging conditions, some systems adapt and become more functional (Taleb, 2012 ). Without the ability to functionally organize after stressors, a system degrades into disorder or chaos over time. Host-defense functions, decision-making/executive functions and values systems prioritize and organize variation in the microbiota, habits/habitual life functions, and population behaviors respectively.

When a pathogen invades the biological system, precise responses must occur to organize this potentially chaotic situation. At the level of the cell, a functional host-defense system (comprised of the innate, adaptive and complement immune system branches) organizes the biological system so that functional invaders (i.e. symbionts) and healthy cells are maintained and dysfunctional invaders (i.e. pathogens) and damaged cells are removed (Hoeb et al., 2004 ; Janeway, 1992 ; Janeway and Medzhitov, 2002 ; Janeway et al., 2014 ). When precision is dysfunctional, the host-defense system may (1) fail to prioritize responses to a costly invasion, leading to a state of infection; or (2) the host-defense system might prioritize dysfunctional responses to the cells of body that prolong a state of autoimmunity (Naor and Tarcic, 1982 ).

When a bad habit emerges, precise responses must occur to organize this potentially chaotic situation. At the level of the self, functional decision-making (or at smaller scales executive functioning) prioritizes and organizes behavior so that functional expressions of habit (or at smaller scales, habitual life functions) are prioritized regularly, and dysfunctional ones are replaced or minimized (de Bruin et al., 2016 ; Prochaska et al., 1994 ; Prochaska and Prochaska, 2016 ; Prochaska et al., 1988 ; Redding et al., 2011 ; Weissenborn and Duka, 2003 ; Bickel et al., 2012 ). When dysfunctional, decisions may (1) fail to prioritize responses that remove a costly expression of habit (e.g. a teen started smoking cigarettes to “be cool” and now has to smoke in the bathroom before each class to get through the day; by not deciding to move at work, one’s breathing becomes shallow and movement becomes rigid); or decisions may (2) prioritize habits that prolong dysfunction despite knowing the dangerous consequences (e.g. an adult continues smoking cigarettes despite knowing the family’s history of lung cancer; an adolescent continues binge on sugar despite a diabetes diagnosis).

When dangerous population-wide behaviors threaten life in a society, precise responses must occur to organize this potentially chaotic situation. At the level of society, the agreed upon values organize the social system so that functional population behaviors are prioritized and dysfunctional population behaviors are minimized. Functional values prioritize behaviors that support the society (e.g. as seen when societies mandate that students get certain vaccines before attending University), while also setting standards that remove/replace behaviors that threaten the society (e.g. new laws create legal repercussions for risk behaviors in society). Without values that functionally prioritize population-wide behavior, society may (1) fail to prioritize responses to a dysfunctional population behavior (e.g. as seen during AIDS epidemic of the 1980s due to insufficient public health values around safe sex); or society may (2) prioritize dangerous behaviors that can prolong societal dysfunction (e.g. the antibiotic resistance crisis (Ventola, 2015 ; Michael et al., 2014 ) has been attributed in part to the over-valuing or over-use of antibiotic medications in healthcare practices).

Precision is essential so that a system can maintain ease-of-functioning in future, changing conditions . When precision does not adequately detect the presence of costly conditions, a response may not be prioritized (e.g. as seen during acute infection, addiction/dependence following a surgery, the AIDs outbreak in the 1980s). When precision prioritizes responses that prevent ease longitudinally, dysfunction is prolonged (e.g. autoimmunity, continued smoking despite family history of cancer, misguided values that create an antibiotic-resistant bacteria). Through dysfunctional -precision, the conditions for life in cells, selves, and societies becomes disordered over time. Through functional -precision, a system prioritizes responses that maintain ease-of-functioning in future conditions. Prioritizing functional microorganisms (i.e. symbionts) supports the developing life of cells; prioritizing functional habits (e.g. weekly exercise) and habitual life functions (e.g. diaphragmatic breathing and relaxed movement) supports the developing life of the self; and prioritizing functional population behaviors (e.g. access to functional health care, economic resources; access to social support) supports the developing life of the society.

Principle 5: Health is valued by a system when precision-and-variation generate maintainable-ease of functioning. Health is de-valued by a system when precision or variation prevent maintainable-ease of functioning

By defining precision-and-variation, we can better understand maintainable-ease of functioning in population health:

Functional-Variation generates ease-of-functioning in the present (e.g. fluid and variable motion reflects an ease and variability of one’s movement); while Functional-Precision prioritizes expressions that can maintain ease-of-functioning in the future (e.g. prioritizing challenging exercise for 20 min each day may lead to an ease in bodily movement long term).

Dysfunctional-Variation prevents ease-of-functioning in the present (e.g. prolonged sitting might lead to rigid movement and shallow breathing); while Dysfunctional-Precision might prioritize expressions that prevent ease in the future (e.g. rather than focus on relaxing breathing and movement on work breaks, one decides to drink alcohol to relax).

Without functional-variation, life is fragile and vulnerable to changing conditions of the present. Without functional-precision, life becomes disorganized from the system’s exposure to changing conditions across time. When functional-and-integrated, precision-and-variation value maintainable-ease of functioning in cells, selves, and societies. When dysfunctional or fragmented, precision or variation can de-value maintainable-ease of functioning in cells, selves, or societies. If maintainable-ease of functioning can be valued in cells, selves, and societies, we will likely observe healthy publics.

Five principles of health are presented: (1) Health is the maintainable-ease of functioning; (2) Maintainable-ease of functioning emerges from multiple levels ; (3) At each level, maintainable-ease of functioning is generated by systems ; (4) Each system employs two functions, precision - and - variation , that generate maintainable-ease of functioning ; and (5) Health is valued by a system if precision-and-variation generate maintainable-ease of functioning. Through these five principles, both naturalistic and holistic perspectives can be considered simultaneously because maintainable-ease of functioning is relevant to biological functioning (e.g. as described in BST) and personal/social, goal-oriented functioning (e.g. as described in HTH). This philosophy can also be used to investigate how naturalistic and holistic phenomena have informed past healthcare interventions. What do vaccine interventions, behavior change interventions, and social change interventions have in common? When successful, these interventions enhance both precision and variation.

Vaccine interventions can enhance both the precision of the host-defense functions and variation in the microbiome. During a vaccine intervention, the microbiome is exposed to a new variation in the form of a new virus (Reidel, 2005 ). Through this exposure, the precision of host defense functions can adapt to prioritize maintainable-ease of functioning in the microbiome in the future. How? The host-defense system produces antibodies that allow the immune system to respond effectively and efficiently to this virus when exposed to it again in the future (Janeyway, 2014 ). Although the precision of the immune system has been enhanced to handle historical threats through vaccines (e.g. for small pox, chickenpox, measles), new viruses like the coronavirus can still emerge. With this philosophy, vaccine developers and public health officials might not only ask the question, “How do we combat the coronavirus?” Researchers, vaccine developers and public health officials may also ask the functional question: “How do we enhance the precision of the host-defense system and the variation of the human microbiome to adapt following an exposure to the coronavirus?”

Behavior change interventions can enhance both the precision in one’s decisions and the variation in one’s habits. During a behavior change intervention, a person’s existing habits are exposed to a new variation in habit. For example, the beginning of a new exercise intervention exposes the individual’s current habits/habitual functioning to changes in movement and breathing (i.e. exercise) that may also change their patterns of eating and hydration. Through this exposure, a person’s decision-making might adapt to prioritize maintainable-ease of functioning in the individual’s lifestyle. How? Some behavior change interventions train one’s decision-making to remove or “counter-condition” unhealthy habits, by replacing them with healthy habits (Prochaska et al., 1988 ). Although modern behavior change interventions have shaped the precision of decision-making during health behavior change (e.g. of smoking, diet, alcohol use, inactivity), new problems for health behavior still emerge when the individual is exposed to a new, potentially addictive technology. With this philosophy, behavior change interventionists and health officials might not only ask the question, “How do we support good decision-making of individuals?” Researchers, behavior change technology developers, and public health officials may also ask the functional question: “How do we enhance the precision of one’s decisions and the variation of one’s habits following the exposure to a new, potentially addictive technology?”

Public health campaigns disseminated by social organizations can enhance the precision of the population’s health values and variation in population-wide health behaviors. Leading up to first Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health (1964), the U.S. Department of Health had become increasingly aware of (i.e. exposed to) variations in a population health behavior. If populations smoked, then populations were more likely to develop lung cancer, laryngeal cancer, or chronic bronchitis (CDC, 2018 ). Following this exposure to (the consequences of) population smoking behavior, society’s values shifted to prioritize health. How? The Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 was adopted, and the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 was adopted to create new health values. This shift in values prioritized new variations in population health behavior by: (1) requiring a health warning on cigarette packages; (2) banning cigarette advertising in the broadcasting media; and (3) calling for an annual report on the health consequences of smoking (CDC, 2018 ). Since these first initiatives adult smoking rates have fallen from about 43% (in 1965) to about 18% today; and mortality rates from lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer death, are declining (Department of Health and Human Services, 2014 ). Although the precision of the population’s values has been enhanced to impact population behaviors (e.g. the tobacco laws described above supported healthy change), new chronic states can still emerge following exposure to social changes (e.g. the invention of the Juul impacted high school and college aged populations). With this philosophy, public policy officials and public health researchers might not only ask the question, “How do we create new laws to protect population health from nicotine addiction?” They may also ask the functional question: “How do we enhance the precision of the population’s values and the variation of the population’s behavior following the invention of a new nicotine delivery system technology (e.g. flavored Juuls)?”

Previously we described that without functional variation, life is fragile when exposed to present changing conditions; and without functional precision, life becomes disorganized from exposure to changing conditions across time. When successful, the above interventions upon biological, behavioral, and social functioning have a common theme: each facilitates exposures to biological, behavioral or social conditions that support (1) increasingly complex/diverse variation; and (2) increasingly organizable precision. Exposure, not avoidance , has facilitated population health in these interventions. While healthcare systematically prioritizes biological exposures in the form of vaccine interventions, they do not systematically prioritize behavioral or social exposures. However, it is documented that exposure to healthy behaviors in youth prevents risk behaviors in adolescence (Velicer et al., 2000 ); and exposure to community-based health initiatives can support population health (Dulin et al., 2018 ; CDC, 2018 ). Given that systematic biological exposures in the form of vaccination have led to a global control of some acute infectious diseases (Tangermann et al., 2007 ); might systematic behavioral and social exposures (especially in youth) be needed to enhance global campaigns toward the control of chronic disease?

A functional language of health is central to the success of a Philosophy of Health. Why? The levels are not separate, but rather are continuously connecting with one another. A good philosophy of health should have the ability to discuss assessment, diagnosis, intervention, and prevention across levels, across systems, across cultural populations, and across time. Using the common language of precision and variation creates discussions that connect the levels and integrate research disciplines.

A case (to) study: mental health as between-level functioning in this philosophy

Historically, and still too often, health professionals have an expertise at one level, that limits their prescription of interventions to that level. This can actually create barriers to a complete solution when a health problem is multileveled. While a person’s mental health is typically assessed based upon their first-person experience of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; symptoms can be triggered by biological, physiological, behavioral, psychological, and/or social dysfunction. Most clinicians typically do not have the ability to assess and address all forms functioning. So if one person, John, is meeting with a clinician who specializes in primary care medicine, he may only be prescribed a biological intervention like medication. If John is meeting with a clinician who specializes in behavioral medicine, he may only be prescribed a health behavior change intervention. If John is meeting with a clinician who specializes in a certain theory of psychotherapy, he may only be prescribed a psychotherapy intervention based on the clinician’s training. If John is meeting with a clinician who specializes in social work, he may only be prescribed a group, community or social intervention. While the above specializations have been helpful in establishing an empirical bases for mental health interventions, over-specialization can be problematic when a multi-leveled solution is needed. In addition, it can also be problematic when a level-specific solution is needed that the clinician cannot provide (e.g. when psychotherapy is needed but a clinician only has the ability to prescribe psychiatric medication).

Technology poses a multileveled issue for population mental health in 2020. Selves have more social connection then ever in history, yet societies are characterized by increasing rates of depression and loneliness (Sum et al., 2008 ; Hammond, 2020 ; Srivastava and Tiwari, 2013 ; Twenge, 2017 ). Researchers might use this Philosophy of Health to facilitate between-level conversations that address seemingly paradoxical outcomes that emerge during this new age of rapid technological growth. To do this, a researcher might first begin by asking questions about functioning at each level ; second , ask questions about processes between the levels ; and third , concurrently ask questions at and between levels .

First: Begin by asking questions at each level

Novel challenges face the iGeneration (and their parents) due to technology’s novel impacts on the development of individual and social functioning (Twenge, 2017 ). For example, if John’s decisions (self-precision) and habits (self-variation) remain consistent during school hours because his parents do not let him have a phone; but his class’ social behaviors around him (society-variation) change dramatically because everyone else at school uses the newest smartphone application to talk during class; will John’s mental health suffer? Although his parents’ intentions are to protect John, the contrast between his behavior (self’s precision-and-variation) and the population social behavior (society-variation) can impact John’s health. Notice here how we have not yet considered functions that connect the self to the society (e.g. John’s thoughts and feelings). Rather we first consider (or contrast) functioning at the level of the self (i.e. John’s decisions-and-habits) and the society (i.e. population social behavior) in accordance with Principles 1–5 (see Figs 1 – 3 ).

Second: Look for functional processes that connect the levels

One person’s thoughts and emotions/feelings are processes that help to integrate the functioning of one-self within the functioning of a society. How might John’s thoughts and feelings connect his (sense of) self to his society? Perhaps John’s parents teach him that it is important to feel separate from his classmates during class so he can think clearly in class; and that he can feel connected to his friends by inviting them over to communicate together after school. This parenting may impact John’s thoughts and feelings during school. If John’s parents do not talk with him about this topic, John may experience different thoughts and feelings during school hours. When kept to one-self, thoughts and emotions are foundational to an internal sense of self as one functions in the larger society; and, when acted upon, thoughts and feelings can become verbal communication (e.g. speech) and non-verbal communication (e.g. body language, facial expressions) that form an external sense of self that is visible to the society. The (internal) experience of and (external) communication of thoughts, feelings and actions form the foundation of all systems of psychotherapy (Prochaska and Norcross, 2018 ). This view can be particularly helpful as researchers begin to investigate how smart technology impacts developmental changes to the self within the society beginning in youth.

Third: Concurrently ask questions at and between levels

Perhaps, a clinical researcher is interested in investigating protective mental health factors in the iGeneration; and they hypothesize that lower rates of loneliness, anxiety, and depression will be seen in subjects that do not respond to text messages immediately. The researcher might investigate further by using the philosophy to develop questions for the research subjects: “(1) Do you use conscious decision-making (self-precision) to prevent yourself from habitually responding to your phone when a text appears (self-variation)? (2) How fast do other’s in your social group typically respond to texts (society-variation)? (3) What changes in thoughts and feelings are experienced (internal self-society connection) after you communicate via text (external self-society connection)?” Perhaps this researcher also wants to investigate how those who are addicted to the technology perceive non-responders. The clinical researcher might again apply the philosophy: “(1) How fast do other’s in your social group typically respond to your texts (society-variation)? (2) Do you experience changes in thought and feeling (internal self-society connection) when others do not respond to you within an hour (society-variation)? (3) How do you communicate those thoughts and feelings (external self-society connection) with others when they do not respond for a prolonged period of time (society-variation)?” Future research might use this method to gather and organize levels of information on mental health factors across different self- and societal-conditions.

The processes that form our mental health form a functional connection between self and society. If mental health is a reflection of the self–society connection, what might be a reflection of the self–cell connection? Physiological health evidences a functional connection between our sense of self and our cells. For example, aerobic exercise is a health behavior that stimulates changes to variations in breathing and movement. By engaging in this behavior, the biological cells of the body are also stimulated via various physiological processes. Breathing will stimulate cellular functioning via the cardiovascular and respiratory systems; and movement will stimulate cellular functioning via the cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and central nervous systems. While all physiological systems are working in collaboration in the body, certain changes to behavioral and biological functioning will stimulate certain physiological systems. By viewing health through this lens, between-level observations join the philosophy: biological functions emerge at the level of the cell; physiological functioning emerges as the cell–self connection; behavioral functions emerge at the level of the self; psychological/mental functioning emerges as the self–society connection; and social functions emerge at the level of the society. Future papers will explore maintainable-ease of functioning at and between levels.

Future directions: new images of healthcare integration and new perspectives of healthcare innovation

By considering this integrative philosophy, one can define health based upon a tangible connectedness, rather than separateness, of cells, selves, and societies. We provide Image 4 as a way to visualize the common paths to the health of healthy publics. When researchers observe that a host defense system is changing cellular functions following an infection, they may also expect these changes to have an impact [along Path 1] on expressions of habitual or physiological functions (e.g. immune function can stimulate the sensation of “achiness” or “pain” altering one’s physical movement, breath rate, hydration, and hunger) (Kelley, 2003 ; Johnson et al., 1992 ; Danzer, 2009 ). When researchers observe an individual deciding to engage in health behavior change following an addiction, they may also expect these changes to have an impact [along Path 2] on the group-behavior of their family system or social systems. When researchers observe changes to society’s values following a newly detected problem (e.g. laws ban Cigarette Advertising in broadcasting media; public health standards mandate certain vaccines before attending school), they may also expect that these changes can have an impact on behavioral functions of individuals [along Path 2] and biological functions of cells/organs [along Path 3]. These levels are continually integrating along these common paths to the health of healthy publics (Fig. 4 ).

When attending to this connectedness new, important questions can have new answers. What function does modern technology serve in population health and healthcare? If technology algorithms prioritize variations in population behaviors, then they fulfill a role as society-level precision. When modern technologies like machine learning (ML) technology and Computer Tailored Interventions (CTI) prioritize patterns of population behavior, we can see profound impacts on social change in a society. Although one might argue that technologies can be used by individual-level functions, the algorithms that are currently deployed and updated on devices interface with big-data gathered on population behaviors (Manogaran and Lopez, 2017 ; Dinov, 2016 ; Mullainathan and Spiess, 2017 ; Cheng et al., 2017 ).

In this paper, we identified that precision can be functional or dysfunctional. Similarly, technologies can support or prevent healthy population behavior. Some technologies prioritize health behavior in populations by tracking physical activity and providing feedback on activity progress; while others prevent healthy behavior by prioritizing sedentary behavior through video-gaming. Some social media technologies facilitate social communication with distant friends and relatives that supports wellbeing; while others facilitate conflictual communication that diminishes wellbeing. Given that modern technology can support or hinder health, we believe it is important that healthcare can prioritize technological innovations that value health in cells, selves, and societies. To do this, technology innovators might seek to value a higher order construct (e.g. maintainable-ease of functioning) in their algorithms.

Medical technology is currently used to titrate the doses of vaccines so that maintainable-ease of biological functioning (i.e. inoculation) is made available to the general population. When biological exposures are not properly titrated, infections can become active in the population and health is no longer valued at the level of the cell. Similarly, when behavioral and social exposures are not tailored to the needs of individuals and groups, populations can become resistant to healthy change, and health is no longer valued at the level of the self and the society. Behavior change researchers Prochaska and Prochaska ( 2016 ) report that when individuals and populations are not ready for a change, interventions that force individuals or populations to take action can increase resistance and prolong dysfunction. By tailoring (or what they term “staging”) behavioral and social level interventions, Computer Tailored Interventions upon behavioral and social functioning are made possible (Prochaska et al., 2001 ; Velicer et al., 2000 , Prochaska and Prochaska, 2016 ). Despite these advances, there remains a need for technological advances that can make maintainable-ease of behavioral and social functioning available to the general population.

Future healthcare interventions could benefit from ML algorithms that tailor behavioral and social exposures to enhance precision-and-variation. Research already demonstrates that tailoring interventions for biological precision (Albert-Vega et al., 2018 ) and biological variation (Brodin et al., 2015 ) can impact long-term biological functioning. Future innovations might seek to use technology to tailor behavioral and social interventions to generate maintainable-ease of functioning. Through the functional language used in this paper we hope readers are inspired to present new questions, new comments, and new perspectives about needed healthcare innovations.

This philosophy of health investigates three levels of health: cell, self, and society. The level of the cell accounts for biological functioning within human beings. The level of the self accounts for first-person functioning of each human being. The level of the society accounts for group functioning of human beings.

Each system is responsible for generating maintainable-ease of functioning at a level. The biological immune system is responsible at the level of the cell. A human's system of health behaviors is responsible at the level of the self. The social system is responsible at the level of the society.

Maintainable-ease of functioning is generated by two functions in each system: precision and variation. The human microbiota, habits, and population-wide behaviors evidence variation in cells, selves and societies respectively. The host defense system, decisions, and values evidence precision in cells, selves and societies respectively.

Population health is generated along common paths that integrate the levels. The biological functioing of cells impacts fluctuations of habits/habitual functioning; and vice versa. The behavioral functioning of each self impacts fluctuations in population behavior; and vice versa. The biological functioning of cells also can impact fluctations in population behavior; and vice versa.

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This research was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Cancer Institute (NCI).

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Saad, J.M., Prochaska, J.O. A philosophy of health: life as reality, health as a universal value. Palgrave Commun 6 , 45 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0420-9

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18 The Value of Health

Daniel M. Hausman earned his philosophy PhD in 1978 at Columbia University, and has taught at the University of Maryland at College Park, Carnegie Mellon University, and since 1988 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Published: 07 April 2015
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Health is valuable both instrumentally, in terms of its consequences for autonomy, opportunity, and well-being, and intrinsically, at least with respect to the mental states it encompasses. Quantifying the value of health is problematic, because there are many different ways in which people may suffer diminished health. Because of this multidimensionality, the “healthier than” relation is incomplete, and health has no quantity or magnitude. Health must be measured by its value. But it has different values, and the same token health states will have different values in different environments or for people who have different goals and activities. The value of types of health states must thus be some sort of average of the varying values of tokens. Assigning those average values is challenging, and actual techniques, which rely on preference surveys, are problematic.

This chapter will be concerned exclusively with the value of human health. In particular, I shall be concerned with the value of a person’s health to that person, with the ways in which health is good for people. One important way in which health is good for a person is if health contributes to that person’s well-being. But I shall not assume that the only way that health can be good for someone is through its bearing on well-being. Health may, for example, also contribute to freedom and independence, or it may constitute a personal good of its own kind.

It is uncontroversial that health is extremely valuable. Every culture values health highly, even as cultures disagree on details concerning what constitutes health. Health is not, however, always good for people. Those German men who were too unhealthy to serve in the Nazi armies were fortunate to miss out on the Eastern Front. Yet exceptions such as this one do not impugn the generalization that health is usually very good for people.

One obvious explanation of this generalization is that a minimal level of health is required for action, consciousness, and life itself. Without some minimal level of health, nothing else can make people’s lives go well. Health beyond what is required for life and basic functioning is also of great value. Why? Three immediate answers come to mind, all of which are correct as far as they go. First, health is an extremely important cause of well-being. But this answer tells us little until we have some account of how health contributes to well-being. A second quick answer is that people value health. But this claim, true as it is, does not tell us much without an account of health that explains and justifies the value that people place on health. A third answer is that health promotes other values such as opportunity and autonomy. But again one must ask how health does so.

To understand the value of health, one needs to clarify what health is. That will be the task of the first two sections. Section 18.3 begins the task of explaining what constitutes better health and whether health has a scalar value, and section 18.4 considers whether preferences can serve as measures of better health, as is assumed by most of those working on health measurement. Section 18.5 addresses the question of whether a measurable scalar value can be assigned to health, and section 18.6 assesses three accounts of the value of health. Section 18.7 concludes.

18.1. Evaluative Views of Health

There is a large literature concerning the concept of health. Most of it takes health to be the absence of physical or mental disease or impairment. Although I shall take for granted this negative characterization of health, it is not uncontested. In 1947, the World Health Organization famously defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (1948: 100). But this definition conflates health and well-being, and, without ever explicitly repudiating it, the World Health Organization itself relies on narrower characterizations of health. Lennart Nordenfelt defends a positive “holistic” view of health as a second-order ability to realize one’s goals (2000: 79–81). Carol Ryff has written extensively on positive health, which she identifies primarily with possessing purpose in life and quality relations with other people, although in her view other goods such as self-esteem and mastery are closely connected. She writes, “Positive health is ultimately about engagement in living” ( Ryff and Singer 1998 : 10).

Rather than interpreting those who see health as well-being (or a generalized ability to realize one’s goals or as engagement with living) as disagreeing about the properties of some single thing called “health,” I think these contrasting claims reveal that there are multiple notions of health. According to the broad concept of health I shall discuss—health as the absence of pathology—which is the concept employed by pathologists and physiologists, health depends on the functioning of the parts and processes within people’s bodies and minds. Although being Jewish was likely to be fatal condition if one lived in Eastern Europe in the early 1940s, it was not itself a physical or mental pathology (though some Nazis mistakenly believed otherwise). Even those who maintain that there is a great deal more to health than what is “within the skin” can recognize a “negative” notion of health as the absence of pathology.

Having in this way limited the notion of health under discussion, controversies remain concerning what constitutes pathology. The many detailed accounts are of two general kinds: naturalist and evaluative. According to evaluative views, it is part of the concept of health that it is good for an organism, and our evaluative standards—particularly concerning well-being—help to define health. It might appear that evaluative theorists are obviously right. 1 Whether something is a disease apparently depends on whether it is bad for an organism in ordinary environments. 2 Tristram Engelhardt provides a memorable example of the way in which values have affected disease classification in his discussion of the history of masturbation, which for a couple of centuries was widely regarded as a disease in Europe and the United States ( Engelhardt 1974 ). Consensus was never complete, and there were disputes about whether masturbation is a physical or a mental disease and about whether masturbation is a cause of disease rather than a disease itself. But much of the medical community regarded it as a medical disorder, and doctors prescribed treatments ranging from opium, cold baths, and visits to prostitutes for men to clitoridectomies for women. It is obvious in retrospect and was obvious at the time that moral judgment influenced disease classification. Tissot’s influential mid-eighteenth-century treatise asserts, “We have seen that masturbation is more pernicious than excessive intercourse with females. Those who believe in a special providence account for it by a special ordinance of the Deity to punish this crime” (1758; quoted in Engelhardt 1974 : 239).

Engelhardt sums up as follows:

Insofar as a vice is taken to be a deviation from an ideal of human perfection, or “well-being,” it can be translated into disease language. . . . The shift is from an explicitly ethical language to a language of natural teleology. To be ill is to fail to realize the perfection of an ideal type; to be sick is to be defective rather than to be evil. . . . The notion of the “deviant” structures the concept of disease providing a purpose and direction for explanation and for action, that is, for diagnosis and prognosis, and for therapy. A “disease entity” operates as a conceptual form organizing phenomena in a fashion deemed useful for certain goals. The goals, though, involve choice by man and are not objective facts, data “given” by nature. They are ideals imputed to nature. ( Engelhardt 1974 : 247–48)

Engelhardt concludes that health is the absence of defect or deviance, where defect and deviance are evaluative notions that depend on views of well-being, perfection, virtue, and duty.

It is, however, questionable whether the case of masturbation supports an evaluative view of health such as Engelhardt’s ( Boorse 1997 : 72–78). Whether historical claims concerning attitudes toward masturbation are true depends on what people in the nineteenth century believed and why they believed what they did, rather than the definition of health. If one believes that masturbation involves physical or mental states that are bad for people, then according to the evaluative theorist, one ought to believe masturbation is a disease. Thus evaluative theorists regard nineteenth-century physicians as justified in their belief that masturbation (as an activity that issues from and causes harmful physical or mental states) is a disease, given their belief that masturbation is bad for people. The naturalist in contrast denies that harmful physical and mental states are automatically diseases and that diseases must be harmful. In some circumstances heresy is a fatal mental condition and flat feet a life-saving escape from the draft. Yet flat feet are pathological, while heresy may be healthy.

There has, of course, been a huge change in values concerning masturbation, and that change in values has been both a cause and an effect of a change in attitudes toward whether masturbation is a disease. But when one looks more closely, it turns out that the claim that masturbation is a disease was not defended by normative condemnation. The case rested instead on a long list of false assertions about the effects of masturbation on the functioning of other organ systems and about the mechanisms through which masturbation had these effects. Those false assertions were no doubt often motivated by moral objections to masturbation, but the causal connections show only that moral commitments can cause people to make false factual claims, not that morality defines pathology. The effects of masturbation were supposed to derive from debilitation caused by the loss of semen. But the loss of semen is not debilitating and has few effects on other organ systems. Masturbation does not result in the loss of more semen than intercourse, which was held to be harmless (apart from the risks of venereal disease), and some other theory had to be concocted to generate a mechanism whereby female masturbation diminished the functioning of body parts. Whether via the loss of semen or in some other way, masturbation does not cause stomach aches, epilepsy, blindness, deafness, vertigo, heart irregularities, or rickets—all of which were alleged to be its effects. If masturbation had these effects, then masturbation would be a disease or a cause of disease such as anorexia or cutting oneself. To the extent that those who regarded masturbation as a disease felt it incumbent on them to show that it had other physiological consequences than a morally condemnable self-induced orgasm, they seem to be repudiating rather than presupposing the view that Engelhardt defends. They apparently did not believe that it was sufficient to point out that masturbation is “a deviation from an ideal of human perfection.”

Even though those who regarded masturbation as a disease were not content to point out that it was a normative defect, Engelhardt might still be right. Why shouldn’t someone who regards masturbation as a defect regard masturbators as sick, just as most Americans are inclined to regard necrophiliacs as sick? 3 If God or evolution designed our sexuality exclusively to lead us to seek intercourse with living members of the opposite sex, then there is a malfunction in those who masturbate or have homosexual encounters or have intercourse with animals or cadavers, just as there is a malfunction in those who prefer a meal of mouse droppings to a decent dinner. (But notice that this thought shifts from a view of disease as morally, prudentially, or aesthetically bad to a view of disease as malfunction.)

Evaluative theorists maintain that it is a conceptual truth that health matters to what people value (see, for example, Cooper 2002 ; Engelhardt 1974 ; Reznek 1987 ). Poor health is supposedly an automatic excuse for certain behavior, a justification for sympathy and the provision of care, and something that diminishes overall well-being. But these claims appear to be false. 4 For example, infertility in young adults is unquestionably pathological. It is a failure of the reproductive system to do what it is designed to do. It may justify medical treatment. Yet many people seek infertility, at least temporarily. Women who are reversibly infertile because they are taking birth-control pills (and by virtue of lacking normal capacities thus not fully healthy) or men who have had vasectomies after having fathered as many children as they want are typically not worse off all things considered. They do not have a condition requiring medical treatment or excusing behavior that would ordinarily be condemned, and their condition does not call for sympathy or care from others.

An evaluative theorist has three possible ways of conceding that apparently better health can be worse for a person. First, even if circumstances are such that better health in a particular regard has harmful consequences, it might still be better in other respects. Second, evaluative theorists might question whether the physical and mental states that people take to be healthy are, regardless of the circumstances, always in fact healthy. On this view, premenopausal women who are sexually active and want to avoid pregnancy are healthier if infertile, because infertility is better for them than fertility, while infertility is unhealthy in those premenopausal women in whom it is involuntary and unsought. A third possibility for the evaluative theorist is to maintain that it is a conceptual truth that states of better health are typically or usually better for people rather than invariably so. Cases in which it is better to be less healthy do not constitute counterexamples to these loose conceptual connections.

These three ways in which the evaluative theorist can meet the challenge posed by cases in which it seems that it is worse to be healthier, leave one wondering how substantial the disagreements between evaluative and nonevaluative views of health actually are. On the first alternative, it is a conceptual truth that setting aside their consequences (which may in unusual cases be harmful) states of better health are better for people. Most nonevaluative theorists agree that apart from unusual circumstances, better health is typically better. So the disagreement turns on whether it is a conceptual or contingent truth that health is a good thing. If evaluative theorists protect their claim in the second way by labeling physical and mental states that serve people’s purposes as states of better health regardless of the functional deficiencies they may involve, then it seems that the evaluative theorist is concerned with a different notion of health than the one that is employed in pathology and physiology. The disagreement collapses into an argument about how to use the word “health.” With the proper translation manual, it is questionable whether the evaluative theorist is asserting anything that the nonevaluative theorist denies. On the third alternative, it is also doubtful whether any important disagreement remains between evaluative and nonevaluative or naturalistic views of health. The evaluative theorist maintains that it is a conceptual truth that good health is generally good for people. The naturalist agrees that good health is generally good for people, but denies that this is a conceptual truth. What is at issue?

Perhaps the source of disagreement lies in the independent characterization of health that the naturalist provides and to which we shall now turn. Notice that evaluative views of health make it difficult to see how the term “health” can be used univocally to refer to states of people, animals, plants, or (more debatably) ecosystems. Health is usually a very good thing both intrinsically and instrumentally, and an evaluative view is defensible. But, as we have seen, to mount a successful defense of a conceptual connection between health and benefit requires some fancy footwork.

18.2. Naturalistic Views of Health

The leading nonevaluative “naturalistic” view of health is Christopher Boorse’s biostatistical view (1977, 1987, 1997; see also Wakefield 1992 and Hausman 2012a ). In Boorse’s view, a pathology obtains when the functioning of parts or processes of the body or mind is appreciably less efficient than what is statistically normal in the relevant reference class in typical environments. Boorse defends a goal-contribution view of functions, whereby the function of a part of a directively organized system consists of the contribution that the part makes to how well or how probably the system achieves its goals. A directively organized system is one that shows resilience in the pursuit of its goals, where that resilience is explained by the structure of the system. Central goals of human beings, like other living things, are survival and reproduction. These goals are not determined by moral or prudential considerations. They are instead enforced by evolution. The functions of parts of human beings are the contributions those parts make to survival or reproduction or to the achievement of narrower goals of particular subsystems to which the parts belong. The functioning of the parts of people is healthy when it is not much below the median level of functional efficiency in a typical environment for the relevant reference class. Reference classes are narrower than whole populations, because unimpaired capacities of male and female and of different age groups differ. Infertility is not pathological in seventy-year-old women, and men who are unable to breastfeed have no disease.

Figure 18.1 , drawn by Boorse (1987 : 370 and 1997 : 8), 5 helps clarify the view. Although Boorse draws what looks roughly like a normal distribution, there is no reason why the distribution of functional efficiency should be symmetrical, single-peaked, or continuous. There might be a small number of discrete levels. Median functional efficiency (which in a skewed distribution could be less than or greater than the mode) defines what is statistically normal.

The Biostatistical Theory

Although the median in the distribution of levels of functional efficiency (in a typical environment) determines a benchmark, the distribution plays no further role in locating the line between pathological and healthy part function. Among the levels of functional efficiency that are lower than the median level, the level of functioning (as determined by the contribution the part makes to the goal-achievement of the systems to which the part belongs) determines whether functional efficiency is adequate and hence healthy or not. Functional efficiency that is “significantly” worse than the median level is pathological. Although functional efficiency is a matter of how well a part is functioning and is thus an evaluative notion, the standards of good functioning depend on a part’s contribution to the systems to which it belongs and ultimately to survival and reproduction. Considerations of well-being, aesthetics, and virtue are irrelevant.

In denying that there is any conceptual connection between health and well-being or other human values, naturalistic theories need not maintain that the relationship between health and well-being is solely instrumental. Health states may also be constituents of well-being, but whether certain levels of functional efficiency contribute to or constitute elements of well-being or other human values in specific environments is a separate question from their contribution to system goals and ultimately survival or reproduction.

18.3. Why Is It Better to Be Healthier?

What is it that makes it better to be healthier? To answer this question, more needs to be said about what it is to be healthier. This turns out to be trickier than it might at first appear, because pathology and health are multidimensional. One person may be in pain, another suffering a cognitive deficiency, a third unable to see. How are these different health states to be compared? To impose some order and to value these health states, health economists have constructed health state classifications and have then assigned values to the health states so classified. 6 Unlike someone’s health, which depends not just on her instantaneous physical and mental states, but on their trajectories through time, health economists take a person’s health state to be a snapshot at a moment, without reference to past or future. Just as the distance an object travels over an interval is the time integral of its instantaneous velocity, so a person’s health during a period is the time integral of the person’s health states. So, for example, the health state now of a woman with a symptomless cancer that will kill her in a few weeks could be little different from the health state of someone in full health. The fact that her health (as opposed to her instantaneous health state) is very poor shows up in her expected trajectory through increasingly terrible health states. Once one has classified the instantaneous health states, one can define people’s health in terms of actual or expected trajectories through these health states. The classification of health states is fundamental to this way of describing people’s health. For an example, the Health Utilities Index distinguishes eight “dimensions” of health: vision, hearing, speech, ambulation, dexterity, emotion, cognition, and pain, and distinguishes five or six levels of severity of deficiencies along each dimension, for a total of 972,000 health states.

As health-classification systems such as the Health Utilities Index recognize, people’s health states are multidimensional. In this regard health states are analogous to consumption bundles in consumer choice theory. A person’s consumption bundle consists of quantities of fruits, fish, water, wine, haircuts, home heating, and so forth, and though one bundle of commodities and services may cost more than another or provide an individual with greater happiness, there is no way to say that one bundle of commodities is literally larger than another, apart from the special case of dominance in which one bundle contains at least as much of each commodity as another and more of some commodities. Although Mitt Romney is much richer than most readers of this volume and consumes a more expensive bundle of commodities, as a Mormon, his beer consumption is probably much lower than that of an average college student. The bundle of commodities he consumes is probably neither literally larger nor smaller than the bundles of commodities and services consumed by different readers of this essay.

Just as one person’s commodity bundle is often neither larger nor smaller than the commodity bundle of another, so it is frequently the case that one person has no larger or smaller quantity of health than another. One can compare how happy people are in various health states or what their median income is or how much on average they prefer one health state to another, but there is no way to say that Jack has literally more health than George, unless Jack’s health state dominates George’s—that is, unless Jack’s health state is no worse than George’s along any dimension and better along at least one dimension. It is tempting to suppose that one might make comparisons in terms of something like “overall functioning,” but this is an illusion. 7 How is one to judge whether Jack, who has a very limited short-term memory, is healthier than Jane, who needs a walker to get around, or Jessica, who is very hard of hearing? What evidence bears on this question?

The relation “is at least as healthy as” is massively incomplete : most health states cannot be compared in their quantity or magnitude of health. It is not just that we cannot tell: there is no truth condition for the claim that one set of functional deficiencies constitutes a greater quantity or magnitude of health than another, unless the former dominates the latter. There is no such thing as a quantity or magnitude of health, just as there is no such thing as the “size” of a commodity bundle.

But, of course, we compare people’s health all the time. If Jack is bedridden, senile, and deaf but has good vision, he seems to be clearly less healthy than George, who is color-blind, but otherwise healthy. Health comparisons such as this one are, I suggest, in fact comparisons of the value of different health states, of how good different health states are. When we say that one person is healthier than another, we usually mean that the first person’s health is better . Similarly, when we say that Mitt Romney has more goods than the typical steelworker, we mean that his goods are more expensive or that most people would gladly trade the steelworker’s bundle of commodities for Romney’s. Though one person rarely possesses literally more or less health than another, it is often the case that one person’s health is better or worse than another’s.

Rather than finding a basis for the value of health in clarifying the measure of health, we have found that there is no measure of health apart from its value. So we might as well ask directly: what is it for one person’s health to be better than another’s or for someone’s health to be better at one time than at another? One finds different answers in the literature. Norman Daniels cashes out the value of health in terms of opportunity (1985, 2007). In his view, someone’s health at t is better than their health at t ′ (or than someone else’s health at some time) if he or she has greater access to the normal opportunity range for someone of that age and sex in that social position and with those talents. Paul Dolan disagrees. He maintains that the value of a health state consists in the quality of subjective experience it involves ( Dolan and Kahneman 2008 ). John Broome (2002 : 94) and Dan Brock (2002 : 117) assert that how good someone’s health is is a matter of the contribution that their health makes to their well-being either as cause or component. The health measure in use in England and some other European countries takes the value of health to be a component of well-being, which health economists call “health-related quality of life.” In practice, health economists usually take one health state to be better than another if and only if people prefer the former to the latter, regardless of the reasons for the preference.

None of these views seems satisfactory. The value of health cannot be cashed out entirely in terms of opportunities. Subjective experience is also important, whether or not it affects opportunities. But opportunity and capacities are important: health cannot be measured entirely in terms of subjective experience either. Subjective experiences are often good indicators of our health—indeed one can conjecture that the evolutionary point of many of our feelings is precisely to indicate what states of our bodies are healthy or diseased. But if our evidence is faulty or we have nervous, cognitive, or affective disabilities, our subjective experience may be excellent when our health is poor. Those with congenital analgesia (an inability to feel pain) are not in better health than those who feel pain.

Nor does the measure of health consist in its bearing on well-being. People with disabilities such as deafness who have coped successfully with their disability may be as well off as people without any disabilities. Whether deafness is a disability does not depend on whether it diminishes the quality of life. It sounds more plausible to maintain that the value of health consists in health-related quality of life, but I suspect that this view appears to be more plausible mainly because it is unclear what health-related quality of life is. What would it mean to say of someone who is deaf and is living an excellent life that her “health-related quality of life” is worse than someone who can hear? As John Broome has argued (2002), there is no way to decompose someone’s well-being into some set of components, with a subset constituted or caused by the person’s health. For example, as Allotey and coauthors (2003) vividly document, the extent to which paraplegia diminishes the quality of life differs dramatically depending on whether one confronts social, natural, and technological circumstances like those in Australia or like those in Cameroon.

18.4. Preferences and the Value of Health

What about preferences? Do they enable health economists to value health states sensibly? Economists do not typically define what they mean by preferences, and when they do offer definitions, they often make indefensible claims that are inconsistent with their own practices. In Preference, Value, Choice and Welfare (2012), I argue that the interpretation of preferences that best fits the practice of economists takes preferences to be subjective total comparative evaluations. What this means is the following:

Preferences are subjective states that combine with beliefs to explain choices. They cannot be defined by behavior. Even in the simplest case in which Sally faces a choice between just two alternatives, x and y , one cannot infer that she prefers x over y from her choice of x without making assumptions about her beliefs. If Sally mistakenly believes that the choice is between x and some alternative other than y , then she might choose x from the set {x, y} despite preferring y to x .

Preferences are comparative evaluations . To prefer x to y is to judge how good x is in some regard as compared to y . To say that Sally prefers x is elliptical. If Sally prefers x , she must prefer x to something else.

Third, preferences are total comparative evaluations—that is, comparative evaluations with respect to every factor that the individual considers to be relevant. Unlike everyday language where people regard factors such as duties as competing with preferences in determining choices, economists take preferences to encompass every factor influencing choices other than beliefs and constraints.

Fourth, as total comparative evaluations , preferences are cognitively demanding. Like judgments, they may be well or poorly supported and correct or incorrect.

On this understanding of preferences, there are strong reasons to deny that one health state H is better than another, H ′, if and only if people prefer H to H ′. First, people might prefer H to H ′, despite believing that H ′ was a state of better health. For example, a manic-depressive may prefer not to treat her disease, because of what she is able to achieve during manic periods, without believing that she is in better health when not medicated.

Health economists might respond that cases in which people judge that H ′ is a better health state than H but prefer H are unusual and may be ignored. Though not defining what it is for one health state to be better than another, perhaps preferences are reliable indicators of how good or bad health is. But it is questionable whether preferences are reliable indicators of health, because people’s preferences among health states are likely to be mistaken. When economists measure people’s preferences among flavors of ice cream or makes of cars, they are asking people for their comparative evaluations of alternatives that the respondents understand well, that they have had ample opportunity to consider, and concerning which they have a great deal of information. When, in contrast, health economists ask people to express their preferences among health states, they are asking people to appraise unfamiliar alternatives concerning which respondents typically have no secure preferences at all.

This concern about the reliability of survey respondent’s comparative evaluations is not just a theoretical qualm. Consider, for example, the “quality weights” that are assigned to health states as classified by the EQ-5D, a health classification system used in Europe, including by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in England (which uses these weights to determine whether treatments are sufficiently cost-effective to be paid for by the National Health Service). The EQ-5D has five dimensions along which health states vary: mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression. Along each dimension, there are three levels: no problems, moderate problems, and severe problems. There are thus 3 5 , or 243 distinguishable health states, to which “quality weights” are assigned. Death is assigned a quality weight of zero, and 1 is assigned to full health—that is, to no problems along any of the five dimensions. Apart from a few health states that may be worse than death, health states have some value between zero and 1. To assign values or “quality weights,” members of the population are asked questions such as the following:

Suppose that you faced a choice between (a) ten years of life remaining in health state 11112 (that is, with no problems on any of the dimensions of health except for moderate anxiety/depression) or (b) eight years of life with no problems on any of the dimensions of health. Which would you prefer?

This is not a choice that people have previously faced. It is far from well defined. What constitutes a “moderate” problem of anxiety or depression? If one actually faced such a choice—perhaps if one were faced with a choice of whether to take an antianxiety drug that would shorten one’s life by two years—it would be an extremely important choice that would demand serious reflection. One would want to know more about how disabling the anxiety or the depression would be. Exactly what counts as “moderate” anxiety or depression? Would one still be able to work, to live independently? How would it affect one’s social life or one’s income? What sort of burdens would it impose on one’s family and friends? To make a serious total comparative evaluation of these two alternatives—eight years in full health versus ten years with moderate anxiety or depression—one would need to gather a great deal of information and deliberate with care.

In fact, when those surveyed are asked whether they would prefer eight years in full health to ten years with moderate anxiety, they answer in a few seconds. What cognitive processes enable them to give immediate answers to questions that are unfamiliar, not well defined, and extremely difficult? They are probably substituting some easier question for the incredibly difficult question they have been asked ( Kahneman 2011 ). Why should one take their answers as good measures of the value of health states? These problems with surveys have no easy solution. Rational survey respondents are never going to invest the effort that is required in order to have settled and well-supported preferences among alternatives such as these. 8

These reasons to deny that H is a better state of health than H ′ if and only if people prefer H to H ′ raise a further question: Why defer to the judgment of survey respondents concerning the values of health states rather than making the judgment oneself? Unable themselves to figure out how to value health states, health economists instead elicit the views of people whose off-the-cuff answers show that they have not grappled seriously with the problems.

So the proposal to measure the values of health states by preferences fares no better than the proposals to measure the values of health states by opportunity, feelings, or well-being. The preferences people express should not be taken seriously as comparative evaluations to which they are committed. One should also wonder why, when faced with the difficult problem of providing a comparative evaluation of the health states defined by the EQ-5D, health economists should rely on the judgments of laypeople who know less about the health states and have had less opportunity to think about them.

18.5. Do Health States Have Values?

Regardless of whether one holds an evaluative or a naturalistic view of health, there is a serious additional problem with the proposal to measure health in terms of the value of health. If two individuals are in the same physical and mental state, then their health is the same. If their health is the same, then any acceptable measure of their health must assign the same number to their health. If health is measured by its value, then if health states are the same, their value must be the same. But the same health state has different values for different people in different environments. Being unable to walk is a devastating blow if one lives in an impoverished swampy or mountainous country with few paved roads. Its impact on well-being or opportunity is far less serious in a wealthy country with wheelchair-accessible transportation and buildings. A strained tendon that most people would find trivial may cost a violinist her career. If, as these examples illustrate, the same health states often have different values, then their values cannot be measures of health. But it is only in terms of their values that health states are generally comparable. So it appears that health is not measurable at all!

There is a way out of this conundrum ( Hausman 2012b ). One can distinguish between token health states—that is the health state of a particular individual at a particular time and place—and kinds or types of health states. The argument above shows that the values of tokens of the same type differ depending on the environment and the values and interests of individuals. Rather than concluding that kinds of health states have no single value, one can instead assign to health state types either the average value of their tokens weighted by the frequency of different circumstances or the value of their tokens in some “standard” context.

If the value of token health states were uniformly extremely sensitive both to the environment and to individual interests, there would be little point to considering their weighted average or the token value in some standard context, because these would tell us little about the values of the actual token health states. Fortunately the values of many token health states are not widely dispersed. A broken toe is a very serious injury to some dancers and athletes, but it has much the same value to a large majority of the population. A migraine headache is pretty much just as miserable whether one is walking through a rainforest or skiing across frozen tundra, whether one is a doctor, a dogcatcher, or a dockworker. But it is questionable whether average or standard values will serve all the purposes for which health measures are designed.

If the values of health state types are the values of tokens in some “standard” environment or averages of the values of tokens, then our inquiry into the value of health leads us to inquire about what constitutes or determines the value of token health states. That value depends jointly on the “within-the-skin” functioning of parts and processes as described by some system of health state classification, on the individual’s specific environment—cultural, technological, biological, and geographical, and on the interests and values of the individual.

18.6. Valuing Token Health States

What makes a token health state better or worse? What constitutes its value? There are three main answers in the literature. Philosophers have argued that the value of health lies in its contribution to well-being, to opportunity, or to capability. Defenders of these three accounts take them as competing, but it is possible to regard the value of health as arising from some combination of its bearing on all three.

18.6.1. Health and Well-Being

Health obviously contributes to well-being, and minimal levels of health are a necessary condition to possessing a life worth living. Most health economists probably see the value of health as deriving from its contribution to well-being. Though they measure the value of health in terms of preferences, they implicitly take greater preference satisfaction to indicate greater well-being. Some philosophers such as Brock (2002) and Broome (2002) have also defended the view that the value of health lies in its bearing on well-being.

Yet, as already argued, health does not always contribute to well-being. Health improvements are not necessarily improvements in well-being both because of perverse environments such as wars, which may reward health deficiencies, and because certain disabilities, such as deafness, need not limit an individual’s overall prospects of living well, despite limiting the variety of good lives that are open to them.

There are two responses to these objections. First, those who find the value of health in its contribution to well-being might argue that even if overall well-being is not necessarily lowered by poor health, the health-related aspect of well-being—the “health-related quality of life”—is diminished. This response seems merely to paper over the difficulty without seriously addressing it. Second, one might concede that poor health does not always diminish well-being, while insisting that it typically does, and that one is consequently justified in measuring the value of a health state by its bearing on well-being.

It is sensible to maintain that better health generally improves well-being, but health has value even when it does not promote well-being. Even if losing one’s hearing does not make one worse off, it is a loss of something of value. A further problem with locating the value of health in its contribution to well-being is that it is no easier to understand or measure well-being than it is to understand or measure health. For the same reasons that one cannot identify the value of health with the quality of mental states, one cannot identify well-being with the quality of mental states. For many of the same reasons that preference satisfaction does not constitute health, it does not constitute well-being either. Like health, well-being is multidimensional, and assigning a scalar measure (for example, in terms of preferences or subjective experience) is problematic.

At the end of the day, one can still say that it is usually the case that those whose health is better are, other things being equal, better off, and if their health is much better, then, other things being equal, they are usually much better off. But these platitudes are not very informative.

18.6.2. Health and Opportunity

As Norman Daniels has argued, health is critical for opportunity. Indeed one way to understand how impairments such as deafness, blindness, or paraplegia can count as disabilities, even when they do not diminish well-being, is to point out their consequences for opportunity. Regardless of the social accommodations society may provide, those who are blind cannot be bus drivers and those who cannot walk cannot be Navy Seals.

The value of health is not exclusively a matter of the bearing of health on occupational opportunities, and Daniels never intended to make such a claim. He uses “opportunity” in a broader sense as the range of valuable activities and experiences available to individuals. Even though poor health may not limit the occupational opportunities of someone who is past a mandatory retirement age, it may limit her opportunities for social interactions, recreation, or enjoyment.

One could stretch the notion of opportunity still further than Daniels does, so that physical or mental states that do not limit activities also count as limiting opportunities, such as opportunities to be free of pain, to avoid anxiety, or to have normal sensory or cognitive functioning. Unless we are to stretch opportunity all the way to include these, Daniels’s account of the value of health will not be adequate. Bouts of pain constitute health deficits regardless of whether they affect opportunities for activities. But if (unlike Daniels) one stretches opportunity so as to include opportunities not to be in pain, then the account is uninformative. It says that health states are bad insofar as they involve subnormal part functioning—that is to say that health states are bad insofar as they are unhealthy.

18.6.3. Health and Capability

Amartya Sen’s proposal (1992, 1993; Robeyns 2005 ) to conceptualize what is of value to human beings in terms of various kinds of functioning (which he takes to be activities as well as states of affairs) and in terms of capabilities (which he takes to be sets of functionings that are available to people) has had a significant influence on contemporary thinking concerning health and its value. Health is one of the ten central human capabilities that Martha Nussbaum identifies (2000). Jennifer Prah Ruger argues that what is of value is not just health but “health capability,” which consists of both health and the capability to pursue health (2010). Sridhar Venkatapuram (2011) argues that health is a “meta-capability”—a capability to acquire other capabilities—and that its value derives from the value of those capabilities, which is in part a matter of freedom and in part a matter of the value of the functionings that the capabilities make possible. Without using the language of capabilities, I have argued elsewhere that the value of health states depends jointly on the feelings they entail and on the activities they permit ( Hausman 2010 ).

Unlike the claims that the value of health states consists in their bearing on well-being or in their consequences for opportunity, the claim that the value of health states depends on the capabilities they imply or, in my variant ( Hausman, 2015 ), on the feelings and activity limitations they involve seems to be true. But one may reasonably question whether it is useful. Sen offers no way to evaluate functionings or capabilities except when capability sets are nested or all relevant evaluative criteria point in the same direction. Indeed he is skeptical about both the possibility and the desirability of scalar measures, which he believes lead people to overlook the complexities of evaluating ways of being and acting. Such skepticism is reasonable, and it may be that the best answer to the question “What is the value of health?” is to insist that health has many different values for different people in different circumstances. But Sen’s skepticism does not respond to the practical need for measures that will help identify the diseases and risks that most diminish health or that will guide the allocation of health-related resources. That practical need does not demand a single context-independent measure of health, but it does demand some function from contexts to health state values, and Sen is skeptical about even such a context-sensitive measure.

18.7. Conclusions

The thrust of this discussion should be discouraging to those, like the staff at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, who seek to generate summary measures of population health and to measure the burden of different diseases, accidents, and risk factors. It is similarly unhelpful to others, like those at the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in England, who need a scalar measure of the health benefits of alternative treatments in order to determine their cost effectiveness. But Sen has good reason to be skeptical of scalar measures of capabilities because all of the existing systems that purport to measure health or the burden of disease have serious flaws.

The questions that the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation address are important and real: how large a contribution to ill health do different diseases, injuries, and risk factors make? Without a scalar measure of health, one can only look at rough indicators, such as the contribution different diseases make to premature mortality. Similarly, within the constraints set by considerations of fairness, if the United Kingdom wants to allocate healthcare resources so as to improve health as much as possible, it apparently needs a scalar measure of health.

What is needed for health measurement or scalar evaluation is unfortunately not necessarily forthcoming. There is no good way to put the many values of different health states on a single scale that will serve all the purposes for which a generic health measure is intended. Those concerned to measure health have to make do with rough indicators of the values of health states.

Philosophers who are not concerned to measure health need not be discouraged by the incompleteness of health comparisons or the difficulties of locating health states along some single scale. If the concern is to understand the values of health rather than to measure health, no scalar unit is required. Neither is there any need for complete comparisons. Health states differ in many ways and have different values. Some health states may have aesthetic values. Consider upright posture or a clear speaking voice. The values of some states of mental health are akin to the values of traditional virtues such as courage or moderation. Other health deficiencies, both physical and mental, are unpleasant in a variety of ways. Others undermine the possibilities of undertaking various activities or pursuing certain objectives. These variegated values are real and palpable, even if there is no good way to put them all on any single scale.

Acknowledgments

I have had a great deal of help thinking through the issues in this chapter from many people over a long period of time. I am particularly indebted to Andrew Altman, Christopher Boorse, Dan Brock, Norm Fost, Paul Kelleher, Elselijn Kingma, Peter Schwartz, Russ Shafer-Landau, Alan Sidelle, and Reuben Stern.

That is Dominic Murphy’s view. He assumes that everyone concedes that part of what defines a disease is harm (2009) and that the debate between “objectivists” and “constructivists” (neither of whom accepts a naturalistic view) turns on whether objective malfunction is a necessary condition for the existence of disease or pathology.

By an “ordinary” environment, I mean to rule out environments like the Nazi wartime draft or the systematic slaughter of Jews, in which traits that usually enhance well-being and opportunity or that are irrelevant to them can be very harmful.

According to the fourth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association , necrophilia is not a mental disorder unless it causes distress to the individual or harm to others. Earlier versions of the DSM did classify it as a disorder. What constitutes a mental disorder is much more controversial than what constitutes a physical disorder. Some societies have approved of intercourse with the dead under certain circumstances.

One central desideratum for an account of the concept of health is that it conform to the judgments of pathologists and physiologists. Their judgments are, however, fallible, and some are more central and more firmly held than others. So an account of the concept of health may conflict with some of the claims physiologists or pathologists make. This essay does not document its uncontroversial claims about their views.

Boorse accidentally mislabels the axes.

The methods employed in the global burden of disease studies carried out by the World Health Organization (2000) and the Institute for Heath Metrics and Evaluation ( Murray et al. 2012–13 ) are somewhat different, but the differences are not material to the issues in this chapter.

One might resist this claim by arguing that fitness permits one to compare health states. But comparisons of fitness are not comparisons of health, if for no other reason than the much greater importance of reproduction to fitness than to health.

In addition there are systematic differences in the way individuals value health states, with those with experience of disabilities such as deafness judging them to be far less bad than those without those disabilities. So at least one of these groups has to be mistaken in their valuations. There is no good reason to believe that the values gleaned from preference surveys are correct.

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English that goes straight to the heart

Good Health and Well Being Essay

An essay is a piece of writing that revolves around a particular theme and contains the academic opinions of the person writing it. A basic essay mainly consists of three parts: Introduction, Body, and Conclusion.

Good Health and well being would guarantee an agile and active mind. Regular exercise helps us to keep fit and simultaneously keep an alarm in mind.

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Good Health and Well Being Essay (900+ Words)

Man, who is a reasonable creature, has a superior mind compared to other creatures. He has been able to control nature due to his advanced brain. However, man needs to keep his body and mind healthy. It is commonly said that “A healthy man is a wealthy one”. Regular exercise helps us stay fit and also keeps our mind alert. Good health ensures an agile and active mind. Poor physical health can have a negative impact on an individual’s psychological well-being.

Recent studies have shown that the stress of modern life is causing various medical conditions, especially heart and neurological problems. Good health helps us maintain a positive attitude towards work and life in general.

Despite facing difficulties and obstacles, life is meant to be positive and joyful. To enjoy the beauty of life, we need energy and enthusiasm, which comes from having a healthy body capable of facing life’s challenges.

The foundation for good health is laid in childhood. It depends on the mother’s health and nutrition, as well as the hygiene of the surrounding environment. These are the two fundamental requirements for a healthy mother and baby. Many children suffer from dreadful illnesses such as polio, diphtheria, and typhoid. Therefore, preventing such diseases is crucial for children’s well-being.

Parents love their children and see them as their best hope. They dream of having healthy, intelligent kids and take responsibility for their physical and mental growth. However, it’s not just the parents’ responsibility to ensure their well-being as children are the future of the country and everyone’s hope.

A child’s development determines the kind of person they become, and a healthy child becomes a healthy adult. A well-rounded upbringing can produce a resourceful individual who can contribute to society and humanity. It’s perfectly fine for others to lend a helping hand in maintaining the good health and well-being of children.

Various individuals, such as educators, neighbors, friends, athletes, teachers, trainers, media personnel, social workers, doctors, and gymnasts, can inspire children to maintain good health and well-being.

In school, a child can develop physically and mentally. Good health and well-being have always been important, but in this competitive age, they are even more crucial to meet modern demands. Life has become fast-paced and stressful from an early age.

The educational curriculum is extensive, and expectations for students are high. Competitions are becoming increasingly difficult, and students must study hard and sit in the classroom for extended periods of time. Educational institutions should prioritize physical exercise and recreational programs to promote good health and well-being among students. This is the primary way for students to learn effectively and maintain their health.

A good school or educational institution is remembered for its facilities for sports and other activities that provide students with physical exercise and entertainment. After long periods of mental work, students need outdoor activities to refresh their minds and overcome mental fatigue.

Regardless of the career they choose, young individuals with a decent academic record and good health aim to achieve their life goals. Good education, good health, and well-being provide the necessary confidence to face challenges and achieve progress and success.

Further examination reveals that individuals with good health and well-being can perform better in any profession. Both physical and mental health are equally crucial for better performance and results. Therefore, it is essential for everyone to prioritize their health to become a result-oriented individual.

Even an untalented person can succeed in their occupation with good health and well-being. We can observe many physically fit people working on farms, putting in their energy to provide for themselves and their families. This work gives them a sense of mental satisfaction and a good night’s sleep. Additionally, physically and mentally strong individuals can provide better support to society and earn the appreciation of others.

Good health is a crucial requirement for various professions, such as the armed forces, paramilitary, police, and other similar forces. Individuals who are physically and mentally fit can excel in these fields and earn recognition and awards for their outstanding performance and bravery in difficult situations.

In the private sector, where professional skills are prioritized, a strong and healthy appearance is also valued. Good health is essential in every aspect of life and can have lifelong benefits.

A person’s mental state reflects on their physical appearance. Negative thoughts and emotions can lead to disappointment and disease, while positive thoughts and a healthy mind can bring a sparkle to a person’s face. The mind and body are closely connected and can trigger a cycle of reactions if not controlled.

Improving access to healthcare facilities is crucial in areas where people are suffering due to the lack of medical attention. In many rural areas, hospitals run without proper medical staff or supplies, leaving people with multiple diseases or injuries untreated. The poor cannot afford treatment in big cities or private hospitals. However, awareness and regular exercise can also play a significant role in maintaining good health.

People who prioritize their health often join gyms and yoga camps, inspiring others to follow suit and make efforts toward disease prevention and overall well-being. By freeing the mind of negative thoughts and focusing on physical health, a person can avoid most illnesses of psychological origin and achieve overall good health and a better state of mind.

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Essay on Importance of Health – Tips for Healthy Lifestyle

Essay on Importance of Health – Health is defined as a state of complete mental and physical well-being. It may also be defined as the ability to adjust physical, mental, and social challenges throughout our life.

As Health and Wellness is a very wide topic and we are not able, to sum up, everything in one article, so, we are trying to give you an idea on Importance of Health in our day to day life as a student point of view.

Table of Contents

100 Words Essay on Importance of Health

Maintaining good health is one of the best practices as it gives us a feeling of complete physical, mental and social well-being. Living a healthy lifestyle can prevent long-term illnesses like such as Asthma, Diabetes, heart diseases, and many more.

It provides us freedom from almost all diseases. It is very necessary for all of us to maintain a healthy lifestyle in order to be fit and fearless of diseases. We must eat healthy food and do regular physical exercises to stay fit always. Being healthy brings happiness to our lives and helps us to live a stress-free and disease-free life.

200 Words Essay on Importance of Health

According to the World Health Organisation, better health is the reason behind human happiness and well-being. It also contributes to the economic progress of the world as healthy populations are more productive and live longer.

There are so many different factors that influence the health status of a person. Some of them are discussed below.

Regular physical exercise and a balanced diet is the only way to stay fit & healthy. It reduces the risk of Heart Attack and Type 2 Diabetes. Moreover, to have strong bones and muscles, physical activity is a must-needed thing.

We must maintain a healthy weight in order to stay fit. By doing this, we can reduce the risk of stroke, heart disease, and anemia among many others. It also helps us in controlling non-insulin-dependent diabetes and increasing our energy levels along with optimizing our immune system.

We must get enough sleep in order to stay healthy and fit. Most of us need daily 7 to 8 hours of sound sleep to keep our health and minds healthy. It has a strong effect on our ability to think and work in our lives. Getting sufficient time of quality sleep at the right times helps us to protect our both physical and mental health.

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Long Essay on Importance of Health

Joyce Meyer said, “I believe that the greatest gift you can give to your family and the world is a healthy you”.

If a person stays healthy physically, he will stay healthy mentally too. Physical and mental health is linked fundamentally. If we are able to keep our bodies fit and healthy by taking the right food and doing physical activities regularly, our bodies will definitely help us to deal with daily stress.

Our body cells are made up of a variety of chemical substances and they move from place to place. Moreover, there are lots of other activities are happening in our body, for which, our body needs lots of energy and raw material. For the well-functioning of our cells and tissues, food is necessary.

For living a healthy lifestyle, good nutrition is one of the best things we should make habit of. If we combine good nutrition with regular physical activities, we are able to maintain a healthy weight which may reduce our risk of chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer. Below are some of the possible ways to do things right to have good health.

Eating and drinking the right things – Eating and drinking the right things can make our health better. Though it is not an easy task to keep a healthy diet in this world of Junk Food, we must maintain a balance in our diet of each food group.

Our balanced diet must include carbohydrates, protein from non-dairy sources, fruit, vegetables, etc. A balanced diet includes the right drinks also as our body needs to stay hydrated to keep ourselves healthy. We must avoid caffeine and sugary drinks as they can cause mood swings and affect our energy levels.

Along with good eating & drinking habits, physical activity & exercise can improve our health and reduce the risk of several diseases like Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, etc. Regular physical activity can boost our endurance and improve our muscle strength. It also stimulates our health and increases our feelings of happiness and calm.

Final Words – In this “Essay on Importance of Health”, we tried to cover the things like, what are the importance of Health in our life, how to maintain a healthy lifestyle, etc.

Though it is a very general topic, and covering each and everything related to Health and Fitness is next to impossible in a single article, we tried our best to cover as much as we can from a student’s point of view.

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Importance Of Good Health Essay

Show More Good health is essential in our life. It is not only means that free from disease and illness. At the same time, it also means good mental health of social well-being. However, to achieve these goals, the first step to have a good health is to be physically healthy. Definition of health is a complete health system in physical, mental and social without any abnormalities, disabilities or any disease and illness. In order to have a good health, it is necessary to take care our body have a good control on our mind and emotion, focus on having a healthy lifestyle, and also pay attention to our surrounding. Furthermore, good health also means recognising the fact that everyone must have a unique and their own value in their dimension, even though …show more content… Good physical health is required in our life as being ill or feeling sick will affect our efficiency to study, work and play drastically thus leads to less productive in work or study ad also less happiness. Good physical health means fitness of one’s body is maintained by good nutrition and exercises. This will leads to an efficient circulation, healthy immune system and strong musculoskeletal strength. As a result, an active life is allowed and risk of chronic disease is reduced. This is not the only benefit we can require from good physical health as we can also enjoy greater energy and fewer aches and pains. We will be physically and mentally sharp in our …show more content… On the other hand, individual lifestyle factor also brings big impact on individuals and community. Individual lifestyle can be defined as daily behaviours and functions of individuals in different categories like jobs, fun, activities and diet. First, individual lifestyle like having a healthy and balanced diet can enable people to have a good health in physically and mentally. Having balanced diet means eating healthy with the adequate amount of different kinds of food which are required by our body. Foods act as a fuel to our body processes which enable us to have movement also ability to think. By having a balanced diet, our body movements can be executed with ease as our strength, agility, coordination and level of performance is all powered. Due to this situation, we can easily tackle our daily physical activities like exercise, work, study and others. People who have poor diet in eating which means having unhealthy food choice can result in stress, strain and pain which will fill in our body movements. Hence, a balanced and healthy diet is better than a poor diet which full of unhealthy food like fried food that have high saturated fats which are unhealthy as unhealthy diet will pose a threat to physical health by increasing the risk of disease like heart disease, diabetes, cancer and also obesity. Furthermore, eating a balanced diet will also affect our

Case Study: Cuse Eats

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Biopsychosocial Model Analysis

It says a person is not health if he/ she is just not sick, but he/she might have a psychological, social and spiritual life crisis. If that is the case then, the model says heathy is the wellbeing of physical, mental, social, and spiritual life of a human…

Social Determinant Of Health

Many people point to healthy lifestyles as a way to improve health. However, there are other variables to consider such as (i.e) the effects of ethnicity and gender on medical treatments, the association of health providers behavior to patient adherence to treatment (Brown, 2016). I think whether people are healthy or not is also determined by their circumstances and environment. Factors such as the state of one's environment, education level and genetics all play a role on health. Yet, maintaining a healthy weight and incorporating meditation into daily life can help improve health too.…

Registered Nurse

The health care system is really designed to reward you for being unhealthy. If you are a healthy person and work hard to be healthy, there are no benefits.” - Mike Huckabee. Personal Health provides many different aspects of life that involve - emotional, intellectual, social, spiritual, and physical which is key to success in college and beyond. Personal Health has many responsibilities that involve - purpose, method, findings, and implications.…

Determinants Of Health Essay

There are several factors that can be regarded as determinants of health; such as personal, social, economic, and environmental factors. Neither the health nor the factors that affecting health are constant across time, geographical locations or different socio-economic sub-groups. Direct comparisons of the level and gravity of different health related measures can offer direct evidence of an economy's evolution in raising overall standards of living and shed light on how different health measures are affected by transformation of specific factors and different public programs or policies. Any comparison involving effectiveness of health policies or programs should consider the change in health outcomes as well as change in distribution…

Health Determinant Essay

Lifestyle is not the only health determinant. Where you live, level of education, accessibility to health care, socioeconomic status, race/ ethnicity, gender, immigration status, social support networks, and inheritance are factors as well. Waiting on a decision of my legal status by the government was stressfully. I felt tired, and sicker than normal. Today, I can relate this back to the insecurities about my future.…

Nine Dimensions Of Wellness

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Essay On Wellness And Wellbeing Of Children

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Personal Wellness Plan

Also by living a physical lifestyle, I feel like I can enjoy more in life, I don’t stay indoors, I actually go out and try new things. Which is also nice as I see more things of this world, whether that be hiking/biking in the…

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Physical Dimension Of Wellness

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Being Happiness: The Three Effects Of Having Happiness And Happiness

My health is everything because having good health enables me to perform the daily functions of my life and makes me happier. For example, for my normal life it allows me to be able to go to university, and make friendships. Also, good health means being able to hang out with friends, and have fun. Good health allows me to enjoy a happy…

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Short Essay on Health [100, 200, 400 Words] With PDF

In today’s lesson, I will discuss how you can write short essays on Health within different word limits. All the essays will be written here with a simplistic approach for a better understanding of all students.

Short Essay on Health in 100 Words

Health is an important aspect of one’s life. A person is considered healthy when he or she is free from illness or injury. Health can be categorised as physical health, mental health, emotional health, social health, et cetera. However, all these categories are interrelated.

While low physical activity can impact overall mental health, mental stress can adversely affect heart health and poor emotional health can deteriorate one’s quality of life. Being in good health enables a person to function optimally and live their life happily.

Some of the basic rules for maintaining good health include going to bed and waking up on time, exercising regularly, eating healthily and drinking at least eight glasses of water daily.

Short Essay on Health in 200 Words

Health is one of the most important aspects of one’s life. One can be a billionaire but if he is not in good health, he can not enjoy the luxuries that money can buy. Thus, health is considered as the real wealth. Health can be categorised as physical health, mental health, emotional health, social health, et cetera.

However, all these categories are interrelated and impact each other. For example, not exercising regularly can make a person irritable and cause mental health problems, while chronic stress can lead to health diseases and diabetes. Poor emotional and psychological health can also make people withdrawn and impact their overall health.

Being in good health enables a person to function optimally and live their life happily. When one feels healthy and is not troubled by pain or discomfort in the body, he can be more active, participate in various activities and be more present in the daily happenings. Being mentally in good health is also very important as suffering from anxiety, depression and other issues can severely deteriorate one’s quality of life.

One can easily improve his health by making some changes in his lifestyle. Some of the basic rules for maintaining good health include going to bed and waking up on time, exercising regularly, eating healthily and drinking a lot of water.

Short Essay on Health in 400 Words

Health is a key aspect of one’s life. A person is considered healthy when he is free from all illness and injury and can conduct his life well. One can be a billionaire but if he is not in good health, he can not enjoy the luxuries that money can buy. Thus, health is considered as the real wealth and being in good health is very important. Health can be categorised as physical health, mental health, emotional health, social health, et cetera.

Everyone can be healthy but good health does not come without the necessary discipline and care. Going to bed and waking up on time, exercising regularly, avoiding junk food, eating healthily, drinking a lot of water and getting some sunlight are a few good habits that can improve one’s health. However, it cannot be achieved in a day. One needs to change their lifestyle and practice healthy habits daily.

Sometimes, one’s external environment can also be the reason for their poor health. Living in shabby conditions, breathing in heavily polluted air, consuming unhygienic food and contaminated water can more often than not, result in bacterial, fungal and viral diseases. Hence, cleanliness is an important factor if one wants to be healthy. One should also take care of their diet and include greens and other nutritious food, limit their caffeine intake, stop smoking and drinking as well as follow the basic health protocols.

Good health is necessary if one wants to achieve their goal in life. One cannot study well or work hard when they are not feeling at ease or are suffering from pain. Adopting a healthy lifestyle makes us healthy and boosts our energy as well as immunity. Thus, good health is the key to enjoying a good life.

In this session above, I have mentioned everything that could be necessary to write short essays on Health. Through the simple words and sentences, I hope now you have understood the entire context. If you still have any doubts regarding this session, kindly let me know through some quick comments. If you want to read more such essays on various important topics, keep browsing our website.

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Importance of Exercise Essay

500 words essay on exercise essay.

Exercise is basically any physical activity that we perform on a repetitive basis for relaxing our body and taking away all the mental stress. It is important to do regular exercise. When you do this on a daily basis, you become fit both physically and mentally. Moreover, not exercising daily can make a person susceptible to different diseases. Thus, just like eating food daily, we must also exercise daily. The importance of exercise essay will throw more light on it.

Importance of Exercise

Exercising is most essential for proper health and fitness. Moreover, it is essential for every sphere of life. Especially today’s youth need to exercise more than ever. It is because the junk food they consume every day can hamper their quality of life.

If you are not healthy, you cannot lead a happy life and won’t be able to contribute to the expansion of society. Thus, one needs to exercise to beat all these problems. But, it is not just about the youth but also about every member of the society.

These days, physical activities take places in colleges more than often. The professionals are called to the campus for organizing physical exercises. Thus, it is a great opportunity for everyone who wishes to do it.

Just like exercise is important for college kids, it is also essential for office workers. The desk job requires the person to sit at the desk for long hours without breaks. This gives rise to a very unhealthy lifestyle.

They get a limited amount of exercise as they just sit all day then come back home and sleep. Therefore, it is essential to exercise to adopt a healthy lifestyle that can also prevent any damaging diseases .

Benefits of Exercise

Exercise has a lot of benefits in today’s world. First of all, it helps in maintaining your weight. Moreover, it also helps you reduce weight if you are overweight. It is because you burn calories when you exercise.

Further, it helps in developing your muscles. Thus, the rate of your body will increases which helps to burn calories. Moreover, it also helps in improving the oxygen level and blood flow of the body.

When you exercise daily, your brain cells will release frequently. This helps in producing cells in the hippocampus. Moreover, it is the part of the brain which helps to learn and control memory.

The concentration level in your body will improve which will ultimately lower the danger of disease like Alzheimer’s. In addition, you can also reduce the strain on your heart through exercise. Finally, it controls the blood sugar levels of your body so it helps to prevent or delay diabetes.

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Conclusion of Importance of Exercise Essay

In order to live life healthily, it is essential to exercise for mental and physical development. Thus, exercise is important for the overall growth of a person. It is essential to maintain a balance between work, rest and activities. So, make sure to exercise daily.

FAQ of Importance of Exercise Essay

Question 1: What is the importance of exercise?

Answer 1: Exercise helps people lose weight and lower the risk of some diseases. When you exercise daily, you lower the risk of developing some diseases like obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and more. It also helps to keep your body at a healthy weight.

Question 2: Why is exercising important for students?

Answer 2: Exercising is important for students because it helps students to enhance their cardiorespiratory fitness and build strong bones and muscles. In addition, it also controls weight and reduces the symptoms of anxiety and depression. Further, it can also reduce the risk of health conditions like heart diseases and more.

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Essay On Value of Good Health

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Set 1: Essay On Value of Good Health

Good health is a great boon. It is the most precious possession of a man. If a man loses his health, the world loses all its charm for him. If you ask a man who is very ill, he will tell you the real value of good health. Health is the real wealth of a man.

Sound mind in a sound body’ is an old saying. Healthy minds can be found only in healthy bodies. Sickly men have sickly minds. Their attitude to life is also gloomy. On the other hand, if a man has good health, his outlook to life is also healthy. Without feeling tired and exhausted he can work for long hours. If a student enjoys good health, his memory is good and his mind is sharp.

However, good health cannot be had for the asking. There is a certain discipline required to remain healthy. Nutritious food plays a very important role. We should take only that food which has nutritious value. Junk food and fast food are very injurious to health. Fresh air is also important for good health. People living in the open air usually enjoy sound health.

Exercise also plays an important role in making a man healthy. All exercises are good for keeping the body and mind fit. Balancing one’s hours of sleep and rest also contributes to good health. There are certain things which are injurious to health. We should guard ourselves against them. Smoking is injurious to health. Eating too much food is also bad as it ‘spoils one’s digestive system.

Irregular habits are certainly injurious to health and so is lack of exercise.

Set 2: Essay On Value of Good Health

Good health is a blessing. All the beauties appear attractive to a man so long he is healthy. For an unhealthy man there is no charm in this world. Health is the greatest wealth for a man.

We all are quite familiar with the famous lines of Alexander Pope, “Early to bed and early to rise/ Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise/ Health, wealth, fame and power/ these four are the blessings of life.” Good health depends on various factors like personal, social. etc. It requires a certain amount of discipline to maintain health.

Nutritious food plays a very important role. Cleanliness is another major factor responsible for good health. We should always take nutritious food. We should keep fast food at bay. Fast food is rich in taste but short in nutritive value. We should always clean our hands before eating. We should avoid eating outside. If we have to eat, we should check for the cleanliness.

Our brilliance and sharpness is closely linked to good health. It is an old saying, “Sound mind in a sound body.” It means that when the body is healthy, the mind is healthy. A sack body cannot have healthy mind. The attitude of such People to life is also gloomy. They have a negative approach to it. Nothing seems to attract them. On the other hand, a healthy man has a completely changed outlook. He enjoys each and every thing. He enjoys the every moment of his life.

He can work longer hours without feeling tired and exhausted. A wealthy man with poor health cannot enjoy his life. All this wealth is useless for him. Money can buy all the luxuries and amenities but cannot buy happiness and pleasure. He has all the luxuries available, but can enjoy nothing. He cannot enjoy good food.

He spends his life under many precautions and preventions. He cannot enjoy even sound sleep. But a poor man with good health lives a better life. He has all the pleasures. He can eat whatever he likes. Thus a poor man with good health has a more enjoying life than a rich but sick man. It has been rightly said ‘health is wealth’.

So we should be well aware of our health. Exercise has a prominent role to play. We should take exercise daily. It keeps us fit and healthy. It refreshes us. Exercise increases our blood circulation and gives us energy and strength. All exercises are good for health. We can choose any of them as per our suitability. Balancing one’s hours of sleep and rest also contributes to good health. We should guard ourselves against those things which are injurious to health.

To enjoy good health we should cultivate good habits and maintain discipline. Only then we will be able to enjoy the pleasures of life. Undoubtedly good health is very important. It is a blessing indeed.

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Importance Of Good Health (Essay Sample)

What is good health?

What is health?

Health equity resources

Physical health

Mental health

Factors for good health

Genetic factors

Environmental factors

Preserving health

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Good Health and Wellness

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A philosophy of health: life as reality, health as a universal value

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The principles

Principle 1: “Health” is the state of maintainable-ease of functioning . A “disease” is a state of prolonged-dysfunction that prevents ease

Principle 2: Health emerges from maintainable-ease of functioning at multiple levels . Maintainable-ease of functioning in the general population can be observed at the level of the cell , the self , and the society simultaneously

Principle 3: Health emerges from systems whose primary purpose is to generate maintainable-ease of functioning at a respective level

Principle 3a: The biological immune system is directly responsible for maintainable-ease of functioning at the level of the cell

Principle 3b: Health behavior is directly responsible for maintainable-ease of functioning at the level of the self

Principle 3c: The social system is directly responsible for maintainable-ease of functioning at the level of the society

Principle 3d: By considering health as maintainable-ease of functioning generated by systems , we have the ability generalize health across levels

Principle 4: Each system employs two general functions— variation and precision —to generate maintainable-ease of functioning at a level

Principle 4a: Variation is responsible for generating the range of abilities, the “varied-abilities”, that can express ease-of-functioning in presently changing conditions

Principle 4b: Precision is responsible for prioritizing and organizing the patterns of variation that maintain ease-of-functioning in future, changing conditions

Principle 5: Health is valued by a system when precision-and-variation generate maintainable-ease of functioning. Health is de-valued by a system when precision or variation prevent maintainable-ease of functioning

A case (to) study: mental health as between-level functioning in this philosophy

First: Begin by asking questions at each level

Second: Look for functional processes that connect the levels

Third: Concurrently ask questions at and between levels

Future directions: new images of healthcare integration and new perspectives of healthcare innovation

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Importance of Good Health in Our Life - How can We Achieve Good Health and Well Being?

Why Good Health So Important in Our Life? Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle

Importance of Good Health in Human Life

18 The Value of Health

18.1. Evaluative Views of Health

18.2. Naturalistic Views of Health