Defining Health in modern times

Kiva Therapeutics defines health as the ability to combat disease and illness through a combination of good nutrition, therapeutic exercise, stress reduction activities, creative outlets and all-out fun.  This means the individual has the ability to study, seek out, research and choose healthy activities to complement ones’ lifestyle.  In 1948 the World Health Organization defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity”.

Looking at the WHO’s definition, I wonder if todays health insurance companies are keeping this in mind? And what about our Health educators?  Are we learning how to take care of our health and to think critically when it concerns matters of our health?  We live in a nation where obesity has become an epidemic and the average elderly person has a cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs in their cupboard.  In Kiva’s experience the average office worker suffers from chronic pain along with adrenal fatigue. While our laborers suffer from limited joint range of motion or degeneration due to improper work mechanics.  We are growing softer, sadder, stiffer and sicker as our days progress.  Millions of dollars are spent on weight-loss programs each year.   Sometimes these programs help out an individual and sometimes they don’t.  How is it that we have become such a country where 33 of the states BMI marker is over 25% and 9 of our states are over 30% which is the marker of obesity?  Perhaps the WHO’s definition is a bit antiquated or Kiva’s definition is naive to the realities of a nations mind-set?

We at Kiva are interested in finding out your methods of keeping yourself healthy.  What keeps you healthy in a busy world full of external stimuli and exceedingly higher and higher expectations?  What do we know about health?  How do we get it?  How do we keep it?  What is the “right” way?  Is there a “right” way? Are we focusing on the cause or the effect when we treat disease?  Are we too stubborn as a nation to change our ways and make ourselves healthier?