What Does It Mean to Be Healthy?

We know the value of health by what is taken away from us when we do not have it. Health problems can affect our ability to move freely, to work, to create, to play, to enjoy food and life's other pleasures, to be able to remember things, and to have family and friends. To be denied any one of these capacities can lessen the quality of life.
Yet sickness is a part of life—something that happens to us—like being born, falling in love, or growing old. Our illnesses, or those of people we care about, are unavoidable elements of our day-today living. To the extent that we are healthy, we have an enhanced capacity for living. But having a disease or condition does not mean that we have to be miserable. It is not the perfection of individual body parts but what a person brings to a life that matters. It is possible to have a disease and to be happy and productive, or to have a condition and to be otherwise healthy. Apart from the care and treatment we receive from the medical establishment, how we respond to challenges to our physical well being depends most on our individual constitution and outlook, and on support from family, friends, and community.
We are fortunate to live in times when there are many things people can do to prevent or control certain kinds of illness and chronic conditions. We can help to keep ourselves and our children healthy by making sure we get vaccination shots, by shunning tobacco products and other substances of abuse, by getting enough physical exercise, and by eating nutritious foods in proper amounts. As we become adults, having screening tests for some of the more treatable forms of cancer, such as breast cancer and colorectal cancer, and tests for diabetes can help to catch diseases early, so that even if we do become ill, the disease will have less of a chance to damage or disable us.
Chronic diseases can be prevented and sometimes controlled by a variety of measures. For instance, a person with emphysema can keep the condition from getting worse by stopping smoking; patients with early alcoholic liver disease or pancreatitis can limit their illness if they stop drinking. Attention to safety can help to prevent many accidents, and injuries from certain kinds of accidents can be minimized, for example, by wearing seatbelts (in cars) and helmets (when riding bicycles or driving motorcycles or skating).
To an increasing extent, in fact, we are responsible for safeguarding our own health. But we depend on society to give us access to the educational and professional services we need. It also is important to remember that while our actions can make illness more or less likely, we cannot fully control whether we stay healthy or not. Sometimes people blame themselves for getting sick, as if they had somehow failed. Or they may feel guilty if their illness upsets their family or friends. But nobody wants to get sick, and nobody should be blamed for becoming ill.