Author: Awaneesh Baibhav
Abstract: According to the World Health Organization, Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity. Health can be promoted by encouraging healthful activities, such as regular physical exercise and adequate sleepand by reducing or avoiding unhealthful activities or situations, such as smoking or excessive stress. Some factors affecting health are due to individual choices, such as whether to engage in a high-risk behavior, while others are due to structural causes, such as whether the society is arranged in a way that makes it easier or harder for people to get necessary healthcare services. Still, other factors are beyond both individual and group choices, such as genetic disorders. Health is elusive to define and ways of thinking about it have evolved over the years. Three leading approaches include the “medical model”, the “holistic model”, and the “wellness model”. This evolution has been reflected in changing ways to measure health. During the 20th century, the medical model was a recognised concept viewing health merely as a state where disease is absent. The biopsychosocial model goes beyond this view and allows for the integration of the physiological, as well as the psychological and social components of disease. The World Health Organisation (1948) states that as a basic principle, “health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. This declaration could be considered by some as too ambitious and absolute in view of its focus on ‘complete’ well-being.
Keywords: Yoga, Health, WHO, Well-being.
Page No: 62-68