The concept of a healthy lifestyle is directly derived from the historical definition of what counts as “health”. You can recall a certain post-war period in the life of our country, when a rapid increase in body weight was considered as a criterion for an excellent vacation at a resort. Twenty years later, on the contrary: by how many kilograms a person has lost weight during vacation (this became especially important for women).
There are more than 200 different definitions of the concept of "health" in the literature. If you follow the motto: "Do physical education and you will be healthy!", Then you can easily "get hung up" on external (prestigious for modern youth) characteristics, doing seriously "cool" bodybuilding and growing a mountain of muscles on your body, striking everyone on the beach with your figure, and in the dining room - with its gluttony, while baffling the doctors with its liver collapsed from anabolic steroids.
Many enthusiasts tend to find in numerous publications on "traditional medicine" some kind of "magic wand" for all diseases. And listen to the categorical statements of the following type: “temper and you will be healthy!”; “Do bioenergy and you will be healthy!”; "Take up regular fasting and you will be healthy!"; "Strictly adhere to vegetarianism and you will be healthy!"
Sometimes there are more radical recommendations: "drink urine and you will be healthy!" …
From the official definitions of the World Health Organization (WHO), it follows that "health is a state of physical, spiritual and social well-being, not just the absence of disease." But, probably, this definition is far from perfect, because contains common words.
And the social well-being of a savage from the Amazon who has a large hut and three pigs (unlike his completely impoverished fellow tribesmen), the well-being of an American taxi driver who earns up to $ 800 a day (but also for the day to wear out a worker), as well as the well-being of an oligarch who believes that “debts give only the cowardly … (with all the ensuing consequences) - it is extremely difficult to compare when assessing their health.
According to the definition proposed by G. L. Apanasenko, "health is not only the absence of diseases, but also a certain level of physical fitness, preparedness of the functional state of the body, which is the physiological basis of physical and mental well-being." Based on the concept of physical (somatic) health, its main criterion should be considered the energy potential of the biosystem. Since the share of aerobic energy production is predominant in the total amount of energy potential, it is the maximum value of the body's aerobic capabilities (IPC ml / min / kg) that is one of the leading criteria for its physical health and vitality."
At the end of the XX century. Yu. Andreev from St. Petersburg put forward his own, figurative vision of this definition, as "The floors of our health" (Fig. 1) [1, 2].
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Figure: 1. "The floors of our health" (according to YA Andreev).
Bioenergy of the human body figuratively acts as the "First Floor", providing energy-information exchange with the environment. And computer prenosological diagnostics of patients on the basis of R. Voll's research, at present, is very informative.
The "second floor" is the absence of defects in the body at the molecular level. "Third" - purity at the cellular level, first of all - the purity of the intercellular fluid: the absence of poisons and "toxins" (separate nutrition, medical fasting, vegetarianism, etc., of course, will have a significant positive effect on humans).
The systemic-functional level (on its "floor") is characterized by the absence of problems with the central nervous system and the musculoskeletal system; good physical fitness (which G. L. Apanasenko wrote about), a healthy cardiovascular and respiratory system; a healthy gastrointestinal tract, the absence of parasites in the human body, the absence of diseases of the endocrine system, kidneys and urinary tract, skin, etc.
The holistic psychological "floor" contains such important components as positive emotions, intelligence, etc. The social level ensures the sustainable and successful development of a person and his interaction with other individuals in society.
The uppermost seventh "floor" is associated with the spirituality of a person and his attitude to the world around him. In the era of predatory extermination of forests, rare animals, fish resources on earth, the unrestrained use of minerals and the construction of cities that absorb the surface of the globe like a cancer tumor, as well as acute interethnic and religious conflicts (when the creativity of large groups of people is aimed at the development and implementation of terrorist acts on a large scale), the very further existence of mankind depends on the spirituality of people.
One can have the highest achievements in bioenergetics and the ability to heal (the first "floor"), but constantly demonstrate the lowest sides of human nature (as Grigory Rasputin showed in the last years of his life). To be distinguished by intelligence, to be an intellectual (5-6 "floors"), but at the same time to forget to engage in physical culture, to be inactive and obese. To be highly spiritual, kind, tolerant, but illiterately "pollute" your intestines, making it an incubator for helminths (Ascaris, Trichinella, etc.), and poison the body with secretions of these extremely unpleasant parasites (which happens in some "saints" in India) …
Requirements of Yu. A. Andreeva to absolute health are so high that (in a purely philosophical sense) it is practically impossible to find an ideal person, and we should talk about certain types of people predisposed to the corresponding "bouquet" of diseases and needing specific strategies for correcting and maintaining their health. At the very least, we can confidently single out certain groups of people engaged in regular physical or mental work, as well as with the predominant development of the left or right hemisphere of the brain.
And therefore, it is important for each person to choose their own path, to form attitudes towards a “healthy lifestyle” and long-term “work” for each “level of health”.
Literature
1. Tomilin, K. G. On the question of the concept of "human health": problems, searches, solutions / K. G. Tomilin // Adaptive physical culture. - 2005. - No. 3. - S. 17-19.
2. Tomilin K. G. Philosophy of health: modern concepts of human health / K. G. Tomilin // Human health, theory and methods of physical culture and sport. - 2017. - No. 2 (5). - S. 87–98. [Electronic resource]. - Access mode:
Author: Konstantin Tomilin