What Does “Healthy” Really Mean?
It’s a spectrum.
As a professional in the health and fitness field for the past 25+ years the word “healthy” gets thrown around a lot, mostly as an adjective to describe a more positive state: a healthy bank account; a healthy diet; a healthy relationship; or a healthy mind, among many others.
But what does “healthy” really mean?
Last week I had a few routine yearly medical checks. Often in those conversations with the nurses and docs, the discussions center around that word “healthy”, having healthy numbers, eating healthy, looking healthy, having a healthy BMI etc, and by virtue of either pure coincidence or the mere fact that I was looking for it more than usual, I noticed how often it gets used and spread across many mediums.
According to the World Health Organization, the term healthy is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity”. Now I don’t know about you, but I can’t recall a time when I was in complete physical, mental and social well-being!! That’s not to say that my levels of each of these haven’t been good or even great (and even poor at moments) but it begs the question of how do we quantify “health” and/or “healthy?”
For example, in the medical field, Body Mass Index (BMI) is a statistic using a weight to height relationship to categorize body mass and subsequently is primarily used as a predictor of health risk. However, this statistic is heavily flawed as it only examines height and weight and fails to consider other factors such as lean tissue, blood marker levels, psychological states, activity patterns, eating behaviors and so on. As a result, a statistic like this can provide incorrect assumptions about health and what it means to be healthy.
So, what does it mean to be “healthy”?
As I reflect on this question and others in reference to something being “healthy” I feel that instead of looking at “health” or “healthy” in absolute terms, we need to acknowledge that the term should NOT be used as an exact state, but more so with the understanding that it sits upon a sliding scale, one that runs between positive and negative, high and low risk, excellent and poor and everything in between.
When I consider the term “healthy” in the fitness field, I look at it specifically in terms of health risk and more to the interactions of one’s behaviors to increasing or decreasing that health risk.
Many years ago, I remember a conversation between a client and their coach, a former mentor of mine. The client, a 55-year old, trained every day at 5am and rarely left the gym without all-out effort. However, the conversation often centered around how the individual would go out to a restaurant every night, eat a big meal and drink around two bottles of wine. In fact, much of his diet wasn’t in great stead; however it didn’t seem to slow the man from the fitness side, his strength and endurance (both muscular and cardiovascular) were well above average.
The conversation started to get heated as his coach was trying to convey how important it was for him to work on his eating and drinking habits to be more healthy. The client’s response came to something along the lines of “I come in here every day and work hard so I can eat and drink the way I do”. In theory, the client wasn’t entirely wrong, it certainly was helping him balance the ledger a little, but as most know you can’t outwork a bad diet and the practices of eating and drinking alcohol often have bigger implications than just body weight. But what triggered this client’s was how the conversation proceeded.
When asked by his coach about being concerned about having a heart attack and dying, the client responded by saying how he had lived a good life, was trying to enjoy it as much as he could, had made plenty of money, and if he had died, though sad, his wife and children would be financially looked after.
The coach then asked if he was prepared for what would happen if he didn’t die, and instead had a stroke, or another health issue that shifted his capacity. What would happen if he could no longer workout the way he was? How would he feel if his wife and children had to look after him for the next 30–40 years if he found himself in a disabled condition? It was during this part of the conversation that I heard the clients tone and mentality begin to shift, and the realization that his reference of health and what it means was not what it could be and that his actions each day were shifting the scale closer to the high-risk category and contributing to the potential for an adverse event. Interestingly, that epiphany was enough for the client to better balance his approach and over the coming months all levels of health showed significant improvement.
I realize that events such as strokes and heart attacks can happen to anyone, but I also know that we can lower the risk of a possible event and aid in the recovery from an event by choosing better and more healthy habits and behaviors.
What is a “healthy” diet comprised of?
The answer to this question could go in a thousand different directions especially if we start debating healthy vs unhealthy foods and what constitutes a food being placed in that category over another. However, without going into an extensive discussion on this, it’s important to note why we place labels on foods when it comes to discussing health. By and large, we look at foods in this respect as it relates to what they can do to your body and whether they are helping or heeding the function of your body. And collectively, when we look at your diet in general, we need to look at it in the same respect. Is the culmination of your dietary choices helping or hurting your body, specifically from a health standpoint, and more specifically, is it putting you at a more or less risk for a health complication?
Do you feel that you have a healthy diet? Why or Why not do you think this is the case? What do you think you need to change for it to become “healthier”? Why is it that you feel this way? What is it about the choices you have right now or would like to change that would make it “healthier”?
What does a “healthy” appearance look like?
I have heard many times over the years people discuss how “healthy” someone looks. What makes someone look healthy? Are they a certain body weight, have a certain physique, possess a high energy level and alertness, or are they essence of several factors that provide a perception of health? What’s interesting is when someone passes away and people are surprised because they “looked” so healthy. This is a perfect example of why appearance is rarely a good indicator of health. This is proven more true when we consider one’s mental health. Is the outside a true reflection of what’s happening internally, physically and mentally?
Do you feel that you look healthy? What does this mean to you when you look at yourself or others?
What is a “healthy” level of exercise?
Most of us are fully aware of what it means if we do little to no exercise (increased illness risk) and what it means if we do too much (increased injury risk) but what is a healthy level of exercise? Again, this could be debated in many different ways and I want to stay clear of the discussion of exercising from a performance standpoint, so putting it simply:
A healthy level of exercise is a balance between too little and too much, relative to an individuals capacity, specific to how a person is and wanting to live their life, without limitation, aimed at maintaining or improving the condition of their body to minimize the risk of injury, illness and disease.
Wowzas, that’s a mouthful. There are recommendations regarding minimum levels of exercise and physical activity to improve health and mitigate disease risk. Still, not everyone is the same or responds the same to various exercise or physical activity. I have always loved the F.I.T.T principle. It’s such a simple but effective way to approach to structure your exercise and identify the balance you need.
F — Frequency (How often are you exercising?)
I — Intensity (How hard are you exercising?)
T — Time (How long are you exercising?)
T — Type (What kind of exercise are you choosing?)
The value of this principle is that it allows you to manipulate each variable as needed to make it easier or harder relative to where you. It also gives you the direction on how to progress as needed. If you are only capable of walking 10 mins right now, great, over the coming weeks you may work toward increasing that to 15 mins and so forth. The manipulation of these variables enables you to establish levels of fitness and standards that you can work toward to improve your health and wellness.
As you reflect on this today, think back to the original WHO definition of health mentioned earlier to consider the major facets of health: physical, mental, and social well-being. Collectively, how healthy are you? What areas do you need to address to become healthier and what steps are you taking right now to maintain and improve your health?
And if you need help to get healthy and would like some support in doing so, please reach out and let’s talk about where you are at and where you want to be. Let’s talk about how healthy you are and how healthy you want to be.
Dr. Dan Dodd is an Exercise Science professional and Coach for BSL Nutrition. Dan is an avid writer on nutrition, exercise, metabolism and body composition. If you’d like to receive more stories, subscribe to get these stories and more.
