WHAT IS HEALTH?
If we are to discuss health provision, promotion and enhancement, we ought at least agree on the definition of health. The WHO in1958 defined it as the total social, psychological and personal well-being. However the West still focusses on the negative concepts of mortality and disease.1
The aetiology of health was researched in depth by Dr Scott Williamson, who regarded health as a biological entity capable of existing as the natural state where environmental conditions were resonant and in mutual relationship with the organism.2
The socio-economic aspects of health are studied by Ichiro Kawachi, Kennerdy & R. Wilkinson.3
A Conference was held in 1991 at the Kings Fund Centre on Total Participation, Total Health, which tried to understand the validity of The Peckham Experiment in todayıs world.4
Gesundtheit! expands the concept of health and happiness and points a way to a new era in health care and medical practice, not dominated by technology and money.5
Aaron Antonovsky developed the idea that our health is dependent on experiencing the world we live in with a sense of comprehensibility, a sense of manageability and a sense of meaningful-ness. 6
Lord Horder suggested health is more than a soundness of body and mind. We canıt define health in a negative way, by saying it is a freedom from disease. Because health isnıt a negative thing; it is positive...As a matter of fact it is not an exact balance. There is a little something to spare, of which the healthy man is quite conscious. This is what leads him to say: ³Itıs good to be alive²7
The new concept of health fits a holistic model of man and the universe, it demands that we have a larger perspective than current thinking can deal with, perhaps Rudolf Steiner gave us some of the vision we now need.²
It has therefore (now) become actually impossible to investigate the true nature of health and disease²8