Wellness
Wellness refers generally to the state of being healthy, but
by the late 20th
century, became, as well, a description of the interest in the more
affluent nations to adopt behaviors which prolong and enhance the state of
being healthy, and by extension, the lifespan itself.Wellness, in this
sense, is subjective, the perception of being healthy, rather than any
investigatable "reality" of being healthy. The behaviors in the pursuit of
wellness sometimes include proven methodologies, but may also include
practices with no scientifically proven capacity to increase health.
The most solid aspects of wellness that fit firmly in the realm of
medicine
are the environmental health,
nutrition,
disease prevention, and public health matters that can be investigated and assist in
measuring well-being.
Wellness, as a concept and a practice, is found in more affluent societies
because it involves managing the body state after the more basic needs of
food, shelter and basic medical care have already been met. Many of the
practices applied in the pursuit of wellness, in fact, are aimed at
controlling the side effects of affluence, such as
obesity and
inactivity - leading to lack of
exercise.
Wellness grew as a popular concept starting in the late 19th century, just
as the middle class began emerging in the industrialized world, and a time
when a newly prosperous public had the time and the resources to pursue
wellness and other forms of self-improvement. Many early consumer products,
from corn flakes to
mouth
wash, derived from or exploited the emerging interest in wellness.
Wellness can include using scientifically-based tests and practices to
maintain health, as in checking
cholesterol,
blood pressure,
glucose,
and other body indicators. Or it can include unproven practices, such as
avoiding certain foods or taking certain vitamins or
alternative medicines.
The subjective nature of "wellness" can be illustrated by the hypothetical
example of an individual who avoids food additives and is selective in
choosing foods to prolong health, but thinks nothing of getting in a car and
driving hundreds of miles. Statistically, the known risk of mortality or
morbidity
from automobile usage is far greater than the risk of mortality or morbidity
from food additives, but avoiding certain foods and food additives feels
"healthy," whereas avoiding automobile use feels merely inconvenient.
Even when the techniques used are not scientifically proven, the pursuit of
wellness can enhance health by a
placebo
effect. Someone who feels "well" may lower
stress and enhance their sense of well-being, achieving an enhanced
psychological state with proven beneficial effects on various body systems,
including
blood pressure,
gastrointestinal system functioning, and
immune response. The field of
psychoneuroimmunology explores these linkages in a scientific manner, and
is also a part of
medicine
proper. However it is new, and still exploring the
biology,
and has little or no clear advice to offer other than to avoid unnecessary
stress or that which is out of one's control or capacity.
Wellness is thought by most to be closely related to
wealth,
either because one must control resources to avoid stress, or because wealth
itself cannot be enjoyed unless one is well, and therefore one can be
potentially both in command of resources and suffering a sort of sensual or
stressful
poverty at one and the same time. It is sometimes observed that even rich
people who take on too many commitments often have just as little free time as
the poor - and may very easily outrun their resources.
Wellness has developed into a buzzword used by the Network Marketing and
Multi-Level Marketing "communities" to sell unproven health supplements and
quack cures.
See also:
Alternative Medicine (Terms,
Philosophy,
Branches,
People,
History,
Index)
