Health and its Failure: Health and disease in the human community are very complex issues. We know that cells are the fundamental units of living beings. Though cells seem to be very static, it is a dynamic place where all the living activities take place. Our body comprises millions of cells that form different body tissues, organs, and organ systems.

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A person is said to be healthy when all body cells actively perform their functions that, in turn, carry out the proper functioning of different body organs. Since the activities of all body organs are interconnected directly or indirectly, hence the malfunctioning of any of the body organs negatively affects health. For keeping ourselves healthy, we must be aware of health-related issues.

What is Health?

According to the World Health Organisation, health is a state of physical, mental, and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. So, health has three dimensions:

• 1. Physical health refers to the normal structure and functioning of all body organs and organ systems.
• 2. Mental health refers to a state of balance and harmony between the individual and the surrounding world. A mentally healthy person is from anxiety and tension. It is difficult to measure the mental health of a person. However, the following behavioural activities all together can be considered as a measurement of good health:
  • (i) Excellent thinking power, problem-solving attitude, creativity, adaptability to the surrounding changes are the signs of good mental health.
  • (ii) The person who is more focused on their goals and achievement is mentally healthy.
  • (iii) Emotional balance and being established determines the good mental health of a person.
  • (iv) A person with good mental health is psychologically fit and stable.
  • (v) Spiritual health is a part of mental health that develops a sense of divinity within a person. Spirituality provides internal strength to a person to cope up with any difficulties.
• 3. The social health of a person means to have a good job, a good house, a happy family, good neighbours, and understanding friends. Overall social health refers to the well-maintained status of a person in society. The following factors determine the status of good social health:
  • (i) The caring and loving nature of a person to their family and friends are the most important aspect to determine the social wellness of a person.
  • (ii) A socially fit person spreads positivity by their presence in a community.
  • (iii) Broad thinking and acceptance of diversity also justify good social health.
  • (iv) Obedience is also a quality of a socially healthy person.
  • (v) A financially prosperous status that can be achieved by a good occupation is another aspect of good social health that can be determined by a financially prosperous status of a person, which can be achieved by good efficiency in their occupation.

The Interrelationship Between the Three Aspects of Health

The three aspects of health are likely to be the three important phases of life that help for the overall development of a person. The interrelationship among the three can be listed in the following points:
(i) The normal functioning of body parts (physical health) is necessary for a good state of mind.
(ii) A person with a healthy mind can maintain their existence in society.

Fig: The Three Aspects of the Health

Significance of a Good Health

Good health has the following advantages:

• 1. Good health increases our working efficiency and helps us to perform various activities at our best.
• 2. The good health of an individual helps to cope with the social and mental pressures without much difficulty.
• 3. Good mental and emotional health leads to the highest work efficiency.
• 4. A person with good mental and social health puts a positive effect on the emotional health of people in their community.
• 5. Good mental health enhances the intellectual power of a person.
• 6. Good social health leads to a balanced and healthy lifestyle.
• 7. The overall health of a person and education share the common equation for a healthy life. An educated person is aware of their physical, mental, and social health and can manage the three quite efficiently. Likewise, a healthy person can improve their learning more effectively than a person with poor health.

Factors Responsible for Health Failure

The definition of health clearly indicates that the health of all living beings depends not only on their physical and physiological functioning but also on their surroundings or environment. The environment includes physical as well as social environments. Respective to these aspects of health, there are the following factors that affect the health of a person:

• 1. Physical Environmental Factors: These factors include the seasonal changes due to the variations in temperature, humidity, rainfall, etc. Natural disasters like cyclones, floods, droughts, etc., adversely affect the health of a population.
• 2. Social Environmental Factors: Our surrounding people and their behaviour mainly affect our mental health. Beyond this, an unhealthy atmosphere at our workplace affects our social as well as mental health.
• 3. Community Issues: Community issues are mainly concerned with public cleanliness. Accumulation of garbage, blocking of drainage, open and stagnant water, etc., increase the chances of the poor health of a person by promoting the growth and multiplication of disease-causing microbes (such as bacteria, fungi, protozoans, worms) and disease-carrying agents (mosquitoes, flies, etc.).
• 4. Unbalanced diet: Nutrients and water are the basic requirements of our body. A balanced and healthy diet has high nutritious values with all the nutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals) in appropriate amounts.
  • (i) Carbohydrates and fats are energy sources.
  • (ii) Proteins are required for the proper growth of an individual.
  • (iii) Vitamin A,B,C,D,E and K are required to maintain the physical health of an individual.
  • (iv) Minerals maintain the proper functioning of our internal body organs, such as the heart, muscles, brain, etc.
  • (v) Water does not only serve as a medium for metabolic activities and transport but also constitutes about 75% of the total body.
• Regular intake of an unbalanced diet adversely and drastically affects the functioning of body organs that reflects poor physical health. An unbalanced diet is the root cause of deficiency diseases.
• 5. Drinking too much alcohol, drug addiction also causes detrimental effects on the individual’s physical health.

Factors Affecting Physical Health: Disease-Causing Factors

The structure and functioning of the organs refer to the physical health of an individual. Deformities in the structure and function of organ and organ systems lead to the departure of health with certain specific symptoms. It is called disease. Some common factors that cause diseases or negatively affects physical health can be tabulated as follows:

Factors Responsible for Disease	Disease
Bacteria	Typhoid, Dysentery, Plague, Diphtheria, Pneumonia
Viruses	Influenza, Polio, Viral Pneumonia, AIDS, Hepatitis
Protozoans	Malaria, Amoebic dysentery
Helminths (Worms)	Elephantiasis
Fungi	Ringworm, Candidiasis
Nutritional Disorders	Kwashiorkor, Marasmus (Protein and Calorie deficiency) Obesity (Excess fat) Rickets, Dermatitis, Night blindness, Scurvy, Beri-beri, etc. (vitamin deficiency diseases), Hypertension (due to excess sodium)

These disease-causing agents that affect physical health are introduced in the body through contaminated food, water, and certain vectors. Hence they can also be classified as food-borne, water-borne, and vector-borne diseases.

Physical health is Affected due to the Malfunctioning of Body Organs

Our body comprises a number of organs and organ systems that bring about several physiological functions in our body to keep the person physically healthy and fit. Malfunctioning of organs and organ systems adversely affect the physical health of an individual. Some examples of these are as follows:

• 1. Constipation, diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting are digestive disorders.
• 2. Jaundice is a liver disease due to increased bile pigment in the blood.
• 3. Hypertension is an expression of high blood pressure.
• 4. A number of hormonal disorders due to the improper secretion of hormones from the endocrine glands have been observed, such as dwarfism, gigantism, goitre, diabetes, etc.
• 5. Improper functioning of heart valves causes heart failure.
• 6. Diabetes, high blood pressure are the conditions that cause kidney failure.
• 7. Alcohol abuse can be the cause of liver failure.

Fig: Factors Affecting Individual Health

Characteristics and Maintenance of Good Health

The following are important characteristics of a person having good health:

• 1. from sickness or diseases refer to good physical health.
• 2. from anxiety, social and mental tensions maintain good mental health.
• 3. Self-confidence is a sign of good social and mental health.
• 4. The ability to work efficiently at its best determines good physical, mental, and social health.

Maintenance of Good Health

It is known to all that prevention is better than cure. To bring this to reality, we should take all the required steps forward for the maintenance of good health. A few key actions are as follows:

1. 5F approach: A phenomenon of 5F can be applied for the maintenance of good health. It includes drinking more fluid (water), washing fingers (hands) before and after the meal and after defecation, covering food to protect from flies and also prevent the growth of flies, proper drainage is required to prevent the flood of sewage in the community.

Fig: 5F Approach for a healthy life

2. Personal hygiene and sanitation: Personal hygiene includes regular bath, brushing teeth twice daily, washing hands before and after a meal, regular exercises, proper sleep, intake of a healthy diet, prohibited smoking, and drinking alcohol is the prevention that should be followed by every person to maintain good health.

3. Community hygiene: Community hygiene includes waste management, proper disposal of garbage, sewage treatment, etc., to prohibit the growth of pathogens, mosquitoes, flies in our surroundings and hence can prevent the disease from spread in the community. Community hygiene not only focuses on good physical health but is also essential for good social and mental health.

4. Vaccination: Getting vaccinated is an unavoidable action that needs to be taken to prevent incurable diseases. Vaccines build immunity for specific diseases by the action of specific antibodies. BCG for tuberculosis, DPT for Diphtheria, typhoid, and pneumonia, Polio vaccines, Covershield and Covaxin for Covid-19 are examples of few vaccines that check the growth of disease-causing agents in the body and therefore keep us healthy.

5. Health awareness programmes:  People should be educated to maintain good health by running health awareness programmes. These programmes should be conducted with the objective of developing healthy habits for their own and for the community and also make the people known to their benefit.

Difference between Healthy and Disease-Free

Healthy	Disease-Free
It is the state of being physically, mentally, and socially well.	It is the state of absence of discomfort and not having any structural and functional abnormalities in the organism.
It is dependent on the person and its environment.	It is dependent only on the person.
A healthy person is always disease-free.	A disease-person may or may not be healthy.

Summary

Healthy means that one should feel good physically, mentally, and socially. Good health increases the efficiency of doing work. Physical health refers to the body functioning. Mental health refers to the state of balance and harmony. Social health refers to the community, and we are a part of this. All three aspects of health are interrelated. Therefore it is necessary to take all necessary steps to maintain good health. Natural calamities, unhygienic conditions, and unhealthy foods are few factors that affect health. A person’s physical health is largely affected by pathogens that enter through contaminated food and water, lack of nutrients, and organ impairment. Since good health is one’s real wealth, therefore it is necessary to make all efforts towards the maintenance of health.

FAQs on Health and its Failure

Q.1. What is health?
Ans: Health is the state of physical, mental, and social well-being.

Q.2. What are the three types of health?
Ans: Physical, mental, and social are the three types of health. Besides these, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, financial are the other aspects of health.

Q.3. What is the significance of health?
Ans: Good health increases our work efficiency and helps us to perform various physical, physiological, and mental activities at our best.

Q.4. What are the signs of good health?
Ans: A person with good health is from all diseases and can cope with mental, social, and physical pressure without much difficulty.

Q.5. How do we maintain good health?
Ans: Good health can be maintained by intake of a balanced and healthy diet, by maintaining personal and community hygiene, by drinking much water for proper body functioning, etc.

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