WHAT IS HEALTH?

WHAT IS HEALTH?

Health is metabolic efficiency. Sickness is metabolic inefficiency. Nobody is totally healthy or totally sick. Each of us is a unique combination of health and sickness. And each of us has a unique combination of abilities and disabilities, both emotional and physical.

As we grow up, we learn that we are loved for our abilities but hated for our disabilities. This happens at home, at play, at school, and at work. Sometimes, this even happens with our doctors, especially if our disabilities mystify them or remind them of their own disabilities.
So, we try to hide our disabilities from people and from ourselves. This charade undermines our relationships and our self-esteem. We learn to fear society and hate ourselves.

Self-hatred is the most debilitating sickness. It interferes with our ability to seek and accept help. And everybody needs help. How do we free ourselves from self-hatred?
First, we reclaim our disabilities, whether society accepts them or not. This means that we learn to accept ourselves. Then, we cope with our disabilities. This means that we learn to take care of ourselves.

Public Health is the science of protecting and improving the health of communities through education, promotion of healthy lifestyles, and research for disease and injury prevention. Public health involves the application of many different disciplines including:
biology, sociology, mathematics, anthropology, public Policy, medicine, education, psychology, computer science, business, engineering, and much, much more.

Public health is concerned with protecting the health of entire populations. These populations can be as small as a local neighborhood, or as big as an entire country.
Public health professionals try to prevent problems from happening or re-occurring through implementing educational programs, developing policies, administering services, and conducting research, in contrast to clinical professional, such as doctors and nurses, who focus primarily on treating individuals after they become sick or injured.