This part aims to explore dimensions of health in order to understand and reflect on how good habits and personal choices can improve our health and well-being, while bad habits can harm it.
We will also see that not all factors affecting our health are within our personal control and that individual and community efforts are needed to achieve good health.
1- The three dimensions of health
Being in good health means more than just being free from illness or disease.
While being physically healthy is the first step to good health, good mental health and social well-being are also necessary. In fact, health is defined by the World Health Organization as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. This means that to be in good health, we must take care of our bodies, our minds and emotions, and we must pay attention to our life-styles and surroundings. This definition of health recognizes that every person is complex and must be valued for all of
their dimensions, not just for their physical ones.
We have a chance to be in the best health when we are aware of all dimensions of good health and when we work toward improving ourselves in as many of them as we can.
- Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not just the absence of disease or infirmity.
- Good health depends on making positive personal choices, including eating nourishing food, being physically active, and avoiding unhealthy habits, such as smoking, drug and alcohol abuse and risky sexual practice.
- Good health is best achieved through the combined efforts of the individual and the community which provides those services which help protect or improve health.
Source: Eat well for good health - FAO
2- The "One Health" concept
The concept of "One Health" has been promoted since the early 2000s, with the awareness of the close links between human health, animal health and the global ecological state. It aims to promote a multidisciplinary and global approach to health issues.
Your mission :
Summarize and present in infographic form the three key points about what it means to be in good health and and how they link with the "One Health" concept.
Module 7 : Introduction
Module 7 : Impact of nutrition on human health