The definition of health as the "ability to adapt and to self manage" is an important step toward a full comprehension of health and disease. In fact, the question about the nature of health is overwhelming. To answer it, we have to ask: When do we not feel healthy? We can easily answer: When we cannot do something that we used to or something that people commonly do. For instance, when we can no longer run as swiftly as we used to, or when a disease inhibits eating food that people commonly eat. To drink, to walk, to eat ice cream, to read a good book; to restore breathing if our nose is obstructed, to restore sight if we are blind or to kill pain if we have a headache - to be healthy is to realize this. The awareness that our desires are being realized is what we call well-being: in other words, the awareness of health. It is important to affirm that, even in the case of chronic diseases, health is possible, first because many disabled people show how to be healthy despite their disability (e.g. Paralympic champions or world famous blind singers such as Andrea Bocelli or Ray Charles); second, because precluding disabled people from health to is relegating them to a second-class personhood.
The only flaw I see in this paper's definition of health is that it highlights only the active aspect of an healthy person, while even when dependent on others a human being maintains his/her dignity and therefore his/her possibility of health: the opposite of health is not the lack of autonomy, but the lack of hope.
References:
Bellieni CV, Buonocore G: Pleasing Desires or Pleasing Wishes? A New Approach to Health Definition. Ethics and Medicine 2009;25(1):7
Carlo V. Bellieni
Pontifical Academy for Life
University Hospital, Siena (Italy)
Rapid Response:
Re: How should we define health?
The definition of health as the "ability to adapt and to self manage" is an important step toward a full comprehension of health and disease. In fact, the question about the nature of health is overwhelming. To answer it, we have to ask: When do we not feel healthy? We can easily answer: When we cannot do something that we used to or something that people commonly do. For instance, when we can no longer run as swiftly as we used to, or when a disease inhibits eating food that people commonly eat. To drink, to walk, to eat ice cream, to read a good book; to restore breathing if our nose is obstructed, to restore sight if we are blind or to kill pain if we have a headache - to be healthy is to realize this. The awareness that our desires are being realized is what we call well-being: in other words, the awareness of health. It is important to affirm that, even in the case of chronic diseases, health is possible, first because many disabled people show how to be healthy despite their disability (e.g. Paralympic champions or world famous blind singers such as Andrea Bocelli or Ray Charles); second, because precluding disabled people from health to is relegating them to a second-class personhood.
The only flaw I see in this paper's definition of health is that it highlights only the active aspect of an healthy person, while even when dependent on others a human being maintains his/her dignity and therefore his/her possibility of health: the opposite of health is not the lack of autonomy, but the lack of hope.
References:
Bellieni CV, Buonocore G: Pleasing Desires or Pleasing Wishes? A New Approach to Health Definition. Ethics and Medicine 2009;25(1):7
Carlo V. Bellieni
Pontifical Academy for Life
University Hospital, Siena (Italy)
Competing interests: No competing interests