Читать книгу Contemporary Health Studies - Louise Warwick-Booth - Страница 34

Health has been called ‘an abstract concept’ that people can find difficult to define (Earle, 2007a: 38). You may appreciate this more fully having completed learning task 1.1. Nonetheless different attempts have been made. One of the most frequently referenced definitions of health is the classic one offered by the World Health Organization. Health is defined as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity’ (WHO, 1948 cited in WHO, 2006). One of the strengths of this definition is its all-encompassing breadth. It moves away from the notion that being healthy is simply about not being ill. In this sense it has a more positive, holistic view about what health is. Notably it also takes into account different dimensions of health including social and mental health which, although difficult to define (Green et al., 2019), are very important dimensions of health. However, the WHO definition has also been criticized on many counts; for example, as being unattainable, idealistic and utopian (Huber, 2011; Lucas and Lloyd, 2005). According to this definition, is it possible for anyone ever actually to be healthy? In addition there are other dimensions of health that are not considered in this definition such as sexual and emotional (Scriven, 2017). Spiritual health is also neglected; however, this dimension of health is increasingly recognized as being an important factor for health experience (Nunes et al., 2018) and there have been calls for the WHO to revise the definition of health to include spiritual well-being (Chirico, 2016). Despite the criticisms levelled at the WHO’s definition of health it has stood the test of time in many respects, largely because subsequent developments in the WHO agenda have broadened understandings about health. For example, in the Ottawa Charter (WHO, 1986) it was acknowledged that ‘health is created in the context of everyday life and environment, where people live, love, work and play’.