2015-08-21
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What Is Health?
After reading this chapter, you should be able to answer these questions:
1. Is it true that if you're not sick, you're healthy?
2. What is the major health hazard in the United States today?
3. What areas of health core ore receiving the most attention?
4. What can you do to promote your own health?
5. What is preventive medicine? What is the difference between preventive medicine and traditional medicine?
The average American born in the 1980s can expect to live for 75 years or more. Most of us take this fact for granted. Yet just a few decades ago it was very unusual for people to live that long. Americans born in 1900, for instance, had an average life span of just over 49 years. Every decade since then, however, advances in medicine and science, combined with improved health practices, have added nearly four years to our life expectancy. Today, in the words of the Surgeon General of the United States, "the health of the American people has never been better."
Not only are we Americans healthier than ever before, but we are also far more health-conscious. Books on nutrition and exercise climb the best-seller lists. Running, bicycling, and aerobics are very popular. We spend our money on sports clothes and fitness equipment. We are openly expressing our concern about such public health issues as hazardous wastes, radiation, and unnecessary food additives.
Yet despite advances in medicine, science, hygiene, and health-consciousness, many Americans—rich and poor, young and old, rural and urban—are not as healthy as they might be. Those who smoke or who are overweight, for example, could be healthier. So could those who get little exercise or who drink excessively.
Health is not just a matter of physical well-being. Emotional and mental health are equally important. And in this respect, too, many Americans are not as healthy as they might be.
This textbook shows what you can do to promote your own physical, mental, and emotional health.
The emphasis throughout is on prevention. Many diseases can be prevented. And many of the factors that contribute to today's big killers—cardiovascular disease and cancer—can be controlled. Thus, the habits you form now and the life style you choose will have a direct bearing on your overall health in the years to come.
In this first chapter we'll discuss just what is meant by health. You'll learn what the major health hazards are, and you'll discover how attitudes toward health care are changing.
Our Potential for Health
Many people think that health is simply the absence of disease. If you're not sick, you're healthy. Right? Wrong.
We can easily see how this is so if we compare two people with typical nine-to-five jobs. Both are 35 years old. One smokes several packs of cigarettes a day, has three or more drinks every evening, is overweight, and is often anxious. The other does not smoke, drinks alcohol rarely, exercises regularly, and is relaxed and confident. Both people may pass all laboratory tests and be declared free of disease. But are they equally healthy? No.
Because many Americans confuse well-being with the absence of disease, they settle for less than the best possible health. We know a great deal about how to promote health and avoid disease. We know about the hazards of smoking, the risks of drugs, the value of good diet and exercise. But this knowledge does not automatically assure us good health. Good health comes only from acting on such knowledge. Not all of us do.
