54
B. A. Balogun
tone of the definition is the call to every individual to take responsibility for his or
her health. In recent times, many researchers and practitioners have challenged the
continued validity of the definition in today’s world. In 2008, two professors at the
Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, University of Toronto, Jadad and O’Grady,
posted a blog to spark conversations on the subject. Between then and now, there have
been over a thousand reactions generated from it. A cursory scan revealed that the
majority called for a new definition from WHO. In their own publication, Fallon and
Karlawish (2019) posited that the seventy-year-old definition no longer addressed
current realities. Feyzabadi et al. (2018) listed ambiguity, ideality, limitlessness, lack
of comprehensiveness, lack of weighting to aspects of health, being non-operational,
reductionism, and lack of a precise definition of the normal condition and disease
as major drawbacks of the definition. Charlier et al. (2017) and Huber et al. (2011)
thought that by going with such an idealistic definition, much of the whole world
could be said to be unhealthy at one time or the other. This is because the global
burden of disease and health inequity today is enormous without excluding people
on the basis of race, wealth, demography or location (Roser and Ritchie 2020). Even
the United States, despite having the highest per capita expenditure on health, is
nowhere near being the healthiest nation (Bradley et al. 2018). It is on these bases
that a review of the ‘health’ definition is called for. If eminent researchers have come
to a consensus of questioning the utopian and unrealistic stance of the definition by
WHO, what is the acceptable position for this paper to go on?
The definition offered by Oleribe et al. (2018) is apt. In summarising views
from sociological, environmental, societal and economic perspectives, they postulated that health is a satisfactory and acceptable state of physical (biological),
mental (intellectual), emotional (psychological),economic (financial),and social
(societal)wellbeing. They recognised that an absolute perfect state of health is a
mirage by accommodating the dynamic nature of our health. Humans are exposed
daily to different physical, emotional and social stressors and must find the resilience
to handle them and maintain wellness of body, spirit and soul. In the words of Huber
et al. (2011), this is the ability to adapt and to self-manage. It is this dynamic state
of health that Bradley et al. (2018) referred to as fullness of life. Health is not an
isolated object picked off the shelf of a supermarket; it enjoys inputs from our total
wellbeing to produce in us the fullness of life. Rather than aggregating so much
into the definition of health as WHO did, we can see what health actually is—fullness of life—and distinguish it from those factors that affect health. Realistically,
nobody is in a complete state of well-being because stressors are always with us
(Misselbrook 2014; Huber et al. 2011). Everyone is responsible for his health, but
no one is in complete control of the external stressors. Numerous epidemiological
studies have revealed to us how sociocultural, political, economic and environmental
factors positively or negatively affect health (Balog 2017). It is on this premise that
Shilton et al. (2011) advocated for meaningful and positive contribution from the
public in the promotion of health. Health cannot be separated from the influence of
external factors. The public has a major role to play to promote, support and uplift
our collective health status. Bates et al. (2019) took a step further by backing the call
of previous prominent scholars on adopting the culture-centred approach (CCA) to
B. A. Balogun
tone of the definition is the call to every individual to take responsibility for his or
her health. In recent times, many researchers and practitioners have challenged the
continued validity of the definition in today’s world. In 2008, two professors at the
Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, University of Toronto, Jadad and O’Grady,
posted a blog to spark conversations on the subject. Between then and now, there have
been over a thousand reactions generated from it. A cursory scan revealed that the
majority called for a new definition from WHO. In their own publication, Fallon and
Karlawish (2019) posited that the seventy-year-old definition no longer addressed
current realities. Feyzabadi et al. (2018) listed ambiguity, ideality, limitlessness, lack
of comprehensiveness, lack of weighting to aspects of health, being non-operational,
reductionism, and lack of a precise definition of the normal condition and disease
as major drawbacks of the definition. Charlier et al. (2017) and Huber et al. (2011)
thought that by going with such an idealistic definition, much of the whole world
could be said to be unhealthy at one time or the other. This is because the global
burden of disease and health inequity today is enormous without excluding people
on the basis of race, wealth, demography or location (Roser and Ritchie 2020). Even
the United States, despite having the highest per capita expenditure on health, is
nowhere near being the healthiest nation (Bradley et al. 2018). It is on these bases
that a review of the ‘health’ definition is called for. If eminent researchers have come
to a consensus of questioning the utopian and unrealistic stance of the definition by
WHO, what is the acceptable position for this paper to go on?
The definition offered by Oleribe et al. (2018) is apt. In summarising views
from sociological, environmental, societal and economic perspectives, they postulated that health is a satisfactory and acceptable state of physical (biological),
mental (intellectual), emotional (psychological),economic (financial),and social
(societal)wellbeing. They recognised that an absolute perfect state of health is a
mirage by accommodating the dynamic nature of our health. Humans are exposed
daily to different physical, emotional and social stressors and must find the resilience
to handle them and maintain wellness of body, spirit and soul. In the words of Huber
et al. (2011), this is the ability to adapt and to self-manage. It is this dynamic state
of health that Bradley et al. (2018) referred to as fullness of life. Health is not an
isolated object picked off the shelf of a supermarket; it enjoys inputs from our total
wellbeing to produce in us the fullness of life. Rather than aggregating so much
into the definition of health as WHO did, we can see what health actually is—fullness of life—and distinguish it from those factors that affect health. Realistically,
nobody is in a complete state of well-being because stressors are always with us
(Misselbrook 2014; Huber et al. 2011). Everyone is responsible for his health, but
no one is in complete control of the external stressors. Numerous epidemiological
studies have revealed to us how sociocultural, political, economic and environmental
factors positively or negatively affect health (Balog 2017). It is on this premise that
Shilton et al. (2011) advocated for meaningful and positive contribution from the
public in the promotion of health. Health cannot be separated from the influence of
external factors. The public has a major role to play to promote, support and uplift
our collective health status. Bates et al. (2019) took a step further by backing the call
of previous prominent scholars on adopting the culture-centred approach (CCA) to