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Health & Fitness

Healthy is no Buzzword

Palatine Chiropractor, Ryan Felde, D.C., shares his thoughts on what it truly means to be healthy.

 

What does it mean to be truly healthy?

If you remember only one thing from reading this article, I want you to remember that the most important thing a person can have is their health.  The unfortunate thing is that many people take their health for granted.

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Until a person has a serious problem with their health, they only use the word as a buzzword.  Companies use the word “health” to sell products and people like to use the word to feel good about their choices.

Many consumers want to make healthy choices and food marketers are aware of this.  In turn, they use this information to their advantage by advertising their product as the healthiest choice.  Therefore, consumers believe they are choosing the healthy alternative when often it is not.

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Take a moment and ask yourself, “What does being healthy mean to me?” and “What does it mean to be truly healthy?”

No matter where I am or who I am speaking with, nearly everyone gives me the same answer.  “Being healthy means you are feeling good.”  This answer is missing a key component.

According to Webster’s Medical Dictionary, health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.”  According to this definition, health is not only feeling good, but a multifaceted entity that must be evaluated and treated from more than one perspective.

The second part of the definition states that health is not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.  This sentence is so profound to our fundamental beliefs that it needs to be repeated:  not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.

This second part is why nearly everyone who answers the question “What is health?” is always answering incomplete.  How many times have you heard someone say, “He was so healthy” right after hearing that someone ended up in the hospital or died?  Just because you feel good does not mean that you are healthy.

Your view on whether you are healthy or not is based mostly off of physical appearance. Does this person look athletic? Does this person look overweight?  Is this person attractive?

When discussing health, patients often tell us that they are healthy and upon questioning, they tell us how they are on 3 or 4 medications, eat mostly processed foods and have no physical activity as part of their lives.  People have become so misinformed about what health truly is that we no longer even know what a good decision is.

Life is broken down into simple facts.  People are designed to move.  People are designed to use food as energy.  People are designed to eat foods occurring in nature.  We have changed what we eat, changed how we eat and changed the way foods are made.

People are designed to eat natural foods, be active and be self-healing organisms. Unfortunately, the way we are designed is not the easiest way to live and it takes effort on our part.  We are a society based on what is easiest, what is convenient and what is the cheapest.

I challenge you today to choose not what is easy, convenient and cheap.  I challenge you to become an informed consumer.  Understand what you are eating, why you are eating it and what it will do for you.

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