Wellness is a predisposition to adopt a series of principles in varied life areas that lead to high levels of well being and life satisfaction. It is the way that one wants to perceive an outcome or a situation. This concerns the level of how one is composed in the face of adversity. On the other hand, health is a state of physical, mental and social well being that is characterized by the absence of illness injury and pain leading to a level of metabolic efficiency in the body of living organisms especially human beings. (World Health Organization, 2006).
Health encompasses various aspects of the wellness of the body. A number of factors are known to influence the health status of an individual. These factors may simply include background, a lifestyle that one lives, economic and social conditions and also person’s individual characteristic and behavior. These determinants of health are known to affect health in varied degree of stress. They are known to cause stress to an individual. High degree of stress has been proved to affect health greatly since a number of fatal illnesses have been known to be caused by stress.
Background is a health determinant, which includes the environment that an individual has been subjected to or the one he/she has been brought up. These factors cannot be controlled by an individual’s will. The environmental factors may include accessibility of healthy needs that one derives from the environment, and that leads one to have a healthy living. These needs include availability of water food shelter, good climatic conditions and accessibility of health facilities like hospitals. Water as a gift from nature is a major component of a healthy body and cleanliness. Lack of it may lead to various complications in the body of a person and may result into an unhealthy environment that could become the genesis of various diseases.
A person’s individual characteristic and behavior also influence the health status and his/her wellness. Some of these individual characteristics are acquired through formal education, and others are inherent in one’s genes. Acquired behaviors include taking health matters as a first priority, while avoiding hazardous situations that may harm or affect one’s health. Other individual characteristics that determine his/her health includes personal ability of managing stress and the eating habit of an individual. Ability to cope with stress varies from one individual to another. Individual lifestyle includes anything that an individual has control. This includes the activities an individual engages into and that can have a serious potential of harm or can even cause death. It is an individual lifestyle that makes him to engage in risky sports or to overdo his/her activities in a manner that increases the probability of harm. Abuse of drugs also falls on this category of lifestyle. (Meeks. et al. 2008)
In the world of today where everything has been commercialized, all the human basic things can only be accessed if one is economically able to purchase his/her needs. Absence of economic ability leads to poor living conditions that are characterized by poor health conditions. Lack of ability to cater for day to day requirements of an individual may lead to stress and other socially unacceptable activities such as crime. Economic status also determines an individual’s lifestyle (Sharon, 2010).
Some of the values of being healthy include reduced incidences of illnesses, a good social life, looking and feeling a better, long life and confidence among others.
Maintenance of health and achievement of a healthy status is achieved through combination of physical, mental and social wellbeing also known as health triangle. It is, therefore, important for every individual to put great emphasis on health and wellness of the body by avoiding situations that might result in health deterioration since prevention is better than cure.
References
World Health Organization. (2006). Constitution of the World Health Organization – Basic Documents, Forty-fifth edition, Supplement.
Sharon, Moshe. Health Secrets from the Seventh Heaven: For Healing and Welness in the World of Opposites. Miami Beach, FL: Akiva Joseph, 2010. Print.
Meeks, L., Heit, P., & Page, R. (2008). Health & Wellness. New York: McGraw-Hill/Glencoe.
