Health and Small Town Scribble

A blue wooden fence with a perfect heart cut out of the middle. Wood is bumpy and rough with a few yellow patches.

Health is such a common phrase that we hear everyday, but what does it actually mean? And why is it so important? Or even what does being healthy truly involve or look like? 

There are so many different types of ‘health’ that there is no right answer, but it’s important to find what works best for you and your lifestyle.

In this article we will touch of many different topics of being healthy:

Why is health important?

As we all know being healthy is a must in life to keep us physically healthy to live a life full of well-being for ourselves. Being healthy is to try and eliminate or reduce illness and injury in your life. Therefore, having health in your life means taking care of your body. 

It is important to treat your body right to try and diminish the illnesses and/or injuries that could harm your health. Because you want to live your healthiest and happiest life, and without practicing health that is hard to accomplish. 

Benefits of Being Healthy:

There are so many more benefits to incorporating health into your life, these are just the main benefits.

What Does Being Healthy Mean?

A pyramid of light green, teal and blue weights. With a blue exercise ball behind, a wrist weight beside and a shoe leaning up the wrist weight

Many believe that being healthy solely means eating healthy and exercising on the regular. While this is true that isn’t all there is to being healthy. 

There are many aspects to living a health filled life: 

In retrospect, some of the above list doesn’t seem about your physical health, but it is part of being healthy. You won’t believe how much external things and feelings actually affect you physically. Your body holds all your feelings without you even realizing it; tension, concentration, joy, all these and more affect you physically and can even take a toll. 

Being healthy is putting yourself first, by taking care of your body and learning the things that cause hardship on you and also learning how to fix those things. 

There is way more to being healthy than just food and exercise, and yes some of those things intertwine with mental health, but that is also part of health as a whole. 

Take this quiz at Goldenbay wellness to figure out how healthy you are and see where you can improve.

The History of Health

Health has come a long way since the beginning of discovering what health and healthy is. 

Starting off being described as the absence of disease and/or injury, being healthy has now evolved into a much more broader topic. Encompassing complete physical, mental and social well-being in one’s life. The WHO organization said it best in 1984, “Health is a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living; it is a positive concept, emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities.”

The world health organization logo.

This was a big turning point for health and when people started to realize that there was more than just illness and injury in terms of health. The WHO organization tried to change the thinking of health in 1948, but it didn’t overly take, but they didn’t stop, and I could dare say that this was the turning point for health in history. 

After the WHO made that statement in 1984, things turned around in health. Healthcare professionals started to focus on people as individuals with their own problems and health issues, instead of defining them by one disease or another. Many resources became available in this time such as, adapting skills, independent living, handling stress, maintaining relationships and many more. 

The Healthy People Program has also contributed to the definition of health. Each decade they release a new version of Healthy People that talks about the goals and objectives that should be present for health improvements within the population. 

The Healthy People Program 2020 logo

All of this defining health has helped not just human healthcare, but also the evolution of animal care and the science for veterinarians.  

Now healthy is defined as the benefits for humans, such as healthy environments, healthy cities and healthy communities and largely depends on a person’s background and demographics. 

All in all health has come a long way in many, many years, and definitely for the better. 

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health#History

Pros and Cons

Now I know I’ve bragged up how great being healthy is, but everything comes with its cons. 

Pros:

We have kind of already talked about the benefits of being healthy, but let’s go a little bit more in depth. 

Cons:

While being healthy has so many benefits and pros there are also some cons, just like anything else. Most cons though are worth it in the long run.

Statistics

Livescience says that only 5% of the worldwide population is completely healthy. Now that includes all sicknesses, diseases and injuries. 

Many illnesses are related to disability of some shape or form. 15% of the world’s population is affected by a disability. The WHO says only 2-4% of the 15% are of non functioning capabilities. 

Illnesses and disabilities is a very broad term. However, some can or could have been prevented or lessened with the proper health incorporated into one’s life. Even living with it you can still take small measures to improve your status. 

Just in America alone less than 3% of the population lives a healthy lifestyle. That’s insane! Many sources say roughly 42% of Americans are obese and some will most likely suffer longer term health problems. This is where being healthy comes in and needs to come in. 

It is something that is so flexible and adaptable from person to person that it’s crazy how bad those statistics are.  

References:

https://www.who.int/teams/noncommunicable-diseases/sensory-functions-disability-and-rehabilitation/world-report-on-disability

https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/news/20160322/less-than-3-percent-of-americans-live-a-healthy-lifestyle

How to start

That is one of the nice things about starting any aspect of health is you can start wherever and however you want. You can go at whatever pace you want and incorporate however much you are comfortable with.

Here are some ideas of where you can start today:

Clean eating

Get into an exercising routine

Starting healthy habits

A zebra cactus succulent with a single growth coming right from the middle in a square white pot with a white background
  • With some healthy habits you will most likely start to feel a difference in the first couple days. Others may take some time to see or feel any changes. And, again, that’s okay. That is all part of the process. So don’t get discouraged if you don’t see a change the first week.
  • Healthy habits are a variety of things. Whatever habit that you want to incorporate into your life that gives you any sort of healthy benefit is considered a healthy habit. However, it has to be a habit that gives you a benefit, not eating a mini chocolate bar everyday. Something like washing your face every morning and every night. 

Those are the main starting points for being healthy or at least starting to be healthy. You can start however you want though; if I haven’t listed somewhere you’d like to start, that’s okay, you can still start there. These are just the main pillars of being healthy and therefore good starting points.

Examples

Clean eating:

Clean eating is a huge mass of things. It ranges from no take out to following a diet. Here are a few examples of clean eating

Eating healthy can involve a lot of meal prepping and different types of meals. Breakfast, lunches, dinner and snacks. Let alone drinks. There are many different things you can try and do. Different foods you can try and different types of meals.

Being active:

Again, there are many options for being and staying active. Here’s a few examples:

Healthy Habits:

Any sort of habit that leads to benefits for you is a healthy habit. There are many different examples of healthy habits:

What Works For You

A message saying take care of yourslef in the middle with a yellow umbrella covering the words from rain.

The most important thing of being healthy is finding what works best for you. What works for one may not work for another and vice versa. Incorporating health into your life can be easy and something you look forward to if you tailor it to you. 

If you start doing something you absolutely hate, you aren’t going to want to do it and that will stop you from doing it at all. Making you slack off or despise doing it and that is not healthy. 

The most important thing about being healthy is finding something healthy that you enjoy and works for you, not what anybody else does or what anyone else says. But, remember to do it safely. 

It’s so hard

Being healthy can be hard, so you need to learn the things that make it less hard for you. 

Doing things that you like to do, but still give you the benefits of accumulating health into your life. So, for example, if you enjoy going for walks instead of cardio at the gym, go for a walk instead. 

If you find something that is too hard or you absolutely dread it so much that you find excuses not to do it, then it probably isn’t something for you. In this case, stop and reassess. Is this helping me? Even if I don’t like doing it, is it helping where I want it to? Is there something else I can do in replace of this? 

And in some cases you may realize it’s not as hard as you thought. Or you may find something else to replace it that you really like. 

It hurts or it’s harmful

If you are doing something that just doesn’t feel right to you, it probably isn’t 

Everyone’s body is different and therefore moves and acts in different ways. So if you are performing a habit or doing a certain exercise, for example, and you are always hurting when you do it, then it is harming more than healing, which isn’t good.

An example: you start doing an advanced level of yoga. Everytime you go, your back hurts after, and not just stretching or sore muscles hurt, but actual pain. That’s not okay. 

Again, stop and reassess, it is obviously not helping, so what can you do instead? Is it just that exercise? Or the whole practice? 

And so what if everyone else can do it. You can’t, your body isn’t there yet or isn’t that type. That is so okay!! Just because some else can do it doesn’t mean you should and end up hurting yourself to do it too. 

Programs

What works best for you also goes for diets, exercise plans and even healthy habits. 

Some eating diets are hard for people to follow, whereas others may find it breezy. Or a certain exercise program is hard for you, but easy for someone else, even though it’s the same.

This boils down to people being individuals again. Everyone is different in some sort of way, so you have to do what works for you. 

Cartoonish images of people doing different types of exercises like roller blading, yoga, running, etc.
STOCK IMAGE: Group of people performing sports activities at park doing yoga and gymnastics exercises, jogging, riding bicycles, playing ball game and tennis. (iStock)

But, that is one of the great things. There are so many different programs and routines out there that you are bound to find at least one that works for you if that’s what you want to do. That is why there are so many out there, because people are so unique from one another.

How to find it

Okay, cool you can do what you like, you don’t need to stick to something you struggle with. But how do you find it?

Research

The biggest thing you can do is google and research. Figure out where you want to start and start with that. It all depends on where you want to begin. Another good place to look is Pinterest. They are some amazing options for all things healthy. 

Look into things that you’ve heard of or are interested in starting. Figure out what you want to try and what you don’t. 

After you’ve narrowed down what you want to do, research that. Investigate and evaluate starting points and where you want to start. Try and make a plan and, like mentioned before, how it will fit into your life. How you are going to keep up with the practice. 

For performing research, all I can really say is google it. There are probably books and for sure there are articles that you can use to find the right starting place for you. 

Trainers, sponsors, etc.

If you aren’t into starting something by yourself or still not sure where to go, don’t hesitate to contact someone who is an expert in the field that you are interested in.

Your health is so important that it is important to have a good understanding of how to and where to start. Ask those questions. 

Just to get an idea, you can easily message someone just to ask a few questions. It doesn’t have to be a long term thing. But, hey, it might turn into that and that’s also okay. 

There are numerous people who are experts in what they do, and most are happy to help. And, many in these fields understand the principle of what works best for you.  Between trainers, ambassadors, sponsors and influencers, you are bound to find someone that can help get you started on your journey to being healthy. 

To find these people just browse again. Google, social media, go into your local gyms, clinics or stores. 

Tips

Like I’ve said many times, being healthy can be difficult. So here are so tips to try and stay on track.

Reminders

Red strawberries and a few white daisies in a heart shaped cake tin on top of a plaid red and white picnic blanket.

Being healthy is changing your lifestyle, even if just a little bit, and it can be hard to do that because we are so in your ways. Sometimes you just need a reminder as to why you are doing it to help you keep going.

Plus that was a lot of words so here are important tips and keys to remember.

Call To Action

Being healthy is a slippery slope. One that takes a lot of practice and self care. But it is something that is so versatile and flexible that it is simple to find what makes you healthy and how you can easily fit that into your life. 

What are you going to do to be healthy? Or what are you already doing? 

Please let me know and if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to reach out to me either with comments, my email or any of my social media.

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