Keeping healthy is an active process. There are many different kinds of healthy. You can be physically healthy but not be mentally and/or socially healthy. A human being must balance all three aspects to truly be healthy. Of course this is easier said than done, due to the fact that living your everyday life is very stressful and most people over work their bodies. It is very hard for a lot of people to juggle everything that life will throw at them and so some people pay attention to other things in life and forget about their bodies and its health. Are we so busy that we fail to realise that we may be ,slowly, killing ourselves?
According to a new City Health Department study, New Yorkers are drinking a lot! (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/22/nyregion/22drink.html) The information was collected in 2003, where they found that the heaviest drinking neighborhoods were in Greenwich village and Chelsea, where reports show 32% of adults were excessive drinkers. The neighborhoods that followed are as listed: Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Gramercy Park (Manhattan), Brooklyn Heights and Park slope (Bklyn). About 15% of New Yorkers drink excessively. The Study also found that men are twice more likely to drink in excess then women. The research has also come to the conclusion that the heaviest drinkers are young and white. About 1,500 people die each year either indirectly or directly because of alcohol.
Physical health is an activity develops and maintains a persons physical (body) fitness and even overall health. Most people exercise to maintain their physique and others for health issues and many people for both. Regular exercise helps to prevent diseases, strengthen your immune system, can improve your mental health and also prevent depression. A person should excercise about 3-4 times a week. (http://www.who.int/governance/eb/who_constitution_en.pdf) for all of you busy busy people, excercise does not have to be done in the gym. You can work out at home! You dont need a bunch of equipment to stay healthy, you just need guidance. For those who own computers or know someone with a computer you can easily go online and watch and download free work out videos from such websites as Youtube.com. Even taking the time out of your day to walk to the super market or bike to work is a form of exercise. People also need to eat healthy to maintain their physical health. Having a healthy balanced meal is critical to good health. Now-a-days we are so tempted to buy the "HOT JUICY BURGER", and we forget how harmful these fastfoods can be. It is not wrong to have food once in a while but unhealthy food on a regular basis is dangerous, it can cause obesity and can lead to high cholesterol and heart attacks. While it is extremely hard for some of us to ignore the temptations of Burger King and McDonalds, heres a few tips. You can take a salad with you to work, top it with your favorite dressing and put any kind of meat that you love to eat with your salad. You can also bake or grill the meat that you cook for dinner; by grilling meat, you drain out a lot of oil from your food that you would otherwise eat if it had been fried. New York ranked the 34th in the U.S with the highest obesity rates in adults. The obesity rate continues to rise not only inNew York but all over the country (http://healthyamericans.org/reports/obesity2005/release.php?StateID=NY).
Mental health is also extremely important! Mental health is the emotional wellbeing or absence of a mental disorder. A person who is mentally healthy is able to enjoy life and balance life activities and cope with stress. There is not an "official" definition of mental health, according to the World health Organization, simply because there are differences between people such as cultural differeces. Life continually throws obstacles in our ways that we have to overcome. Everyday life isn't exactly a peace of cake, although we do have our moments when things seem perfect, for some reason life feels stressful about 90% of the time. Some people, under so much pressure, begin to fall into a state of depression (http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/stressmanagement/a/whatismental.htm). In fact, Mental health disorders account for four of the top 10 causes of disability in established market economies. About ever year 1 in 5 adults are diagnosed with a mental disorder. Millions of people suffer from drepressive illnesses and about 18.8 million adults 18 and over will eventually suffer from a drepressive illness. A study also finds that women are twice as likely to suffer from major depression then men( http://www.nyp.org/health/mental-health-stats.html).
Lastly, to complete our circle of health we must also be socially healthy. People need to get out! Everyone deserves a break in life. We become so consumed in our daily lives that we sometimes forget we need a TIME OUT! Working and being active is great, but sometimes just hanging out with your friends at the mall, hanging out on a Saturday night at your local lounge, or even just taking a walk with a friend or family member is good for you. People need someone to talk to, people to relax with and forget about stress for a little while. Releasing stress in crucial to health! Simple things can help us release just a little bit of stress at a time. Sometimes just being around people can help so that you don't feel as if you're the only person going through a bunch of "crap". Social Health also depends on our person views and attitudes. We need to be more optomistic as people. Although it is'nt always easy to keep a positive outlook on things, it does help to think, "things could always be worse."(House, J. S. {1977}. The three faces of social psychology. Sociometry, 40, 161-177) There are certain things in life which we must accept and others where we can either try to make it better or do nothing and bath in sorrow. I honestly prefer to be positive about things and would reccommend other people to try the same.
All these three things, Physical, Mental, and Social are important in being and staying healthy. It is not easy to do this but, with effort, being healthy could improve a persons life, not only in the physical aspect of it.
