What does it mean to be healthy?

Good health is a precious and priceless asset, whether for oneself or for close friends and family. When it fails, general well-being and life as a whole are affected. So the question on everyone’s mind is: how can we stay healthy or improve our daily well-being?

Physical activity, dietary habits and scientific remedies… Useful tips and advice for protecting your health can be categorised in various ways. Discover different health and wellness tips from doctors, pharmacists and health scientists. Adapt them to your daily life and adopt them today to be healthy and enjoy life to the full!

Being healthy is first and foremost about not having any physical problems. However, health also includes mental and social well-being. Health status also varies according to age and lifestyle (daily activities, diet, sleep, environment, etc.). Healthy people can thus be described as mentally balanced, socially fulfilled and enjoying complete and lasting physical well-being.

What is good health?

Good Health is more of a goal than a state, for several reasons. Firstly, because the physical state varies from one moment (age) to another in the same person depending on his or her activity, diet, the hours of sleep he or she gives or denies himself or herself, his or her environment, etc.

Secondly, because the human body is not static: it is constantly changing. Between conception and adulthood, the organs develop almost continuously (for example, brain development is not considered to stop until around the age of 25). After adulthood, the body continues to change depending on whether it is stimulated or allowed to slouch; and of course it ages under the combined effect of physical activity, environment, diet, normal events (pregnancy(s), breastfeeding) or accidental life events.

However, we can tell if someone is, or is not, ‘healthy’. And it is relatively simple.

In developed countries, people who are born without disabilities and chronic illnesses are most often healthy because they are well nourished. When they are “sick”, it is temporary – they have a cold or bronchitis or gastroenteritis, which heals spontaneously in eight days because their immune system does the work.

Some people born with a disability are, despite it, very healthy. A person who is deaf or visually impaired or even born without an arm can be perfectly healthy. Even when the disability is very embarrassing and compromises their social life, it does not necessarily affect their general health or psychological health.

Similarly, some people with chronic conditions (seasonal pollen allergy, migraine) may be otherwise perfectly healthy and remain so. Allergies may disappear by moving to another region (or with appropriate treatment); migraines may subside after the menopause (for women) or after changing jobs or solving family problems (for both sexes). People with seasonal allergies or migraines are not in poor health. They have a physical characteristic that sometimes causes distressing symptoms but does not affect their future health.

Well, when you have nothing in particular, how do you know if you are healthy?

Most often, we only worry about our health in two circumstances

1° we don’t feel well

2° we don’t feel bad but we would like it to last.

I don’t feel well, am I ill?

Let’s take the first circumstance. One can feel unwell (or sick) occasionally (as in the above-mentioned cases of a mild respiratory or digestive infection). But generally speaking, all benign illnesses heal spontaneously within one to two weeks. So anything that lasts less than eight days is, a priori, benign (between eight and fifteen, it probably is too).

Some common symptoms are painful but do not mean that you are unhealthy:

Mechanical pain: having pain in a limb or back is not necessarily a sign of ill health (or disease). When this pain occurs in certain positions or after certain movements, it is most likely muscular and not serious. The muscles of the body hurt when they are overused. Pain is a warning, not necessarily a symptom of ill health or disease. Occasional pain (especially when it is brief) is not a cause for concern.

Digestive disorders (constipation, accelerated bowel movements, heartburn): Their brevity (again – less than eight days) is a sign of their benignity. If they last longer than eight days (or if they are so severe that they interfere with daily life), they should be seen, but this does not make them serious.

Fatigue: it is not a sign of ill health, it is a signal that the brain sends us to tell us that we are doing (or undergoing) too much. In other words, we don’t treat fatigue, we treat the causes of fatigue. The first treatment for fatigue (when possible) is rest and sleep. Sometimes we don’t know how to stop and rest. We have to ask our loved ones to force us to stop.

Lack of appetite: everyone is allowed to skip a meal (including children over two years old when they are too busy to eat). Skipping a meal was (is) serious when the population is starving. It is not so in countries of plenty like Western Europe or North America. Mothers will always have an interest in not fighting with their child who is not hungry. As one of my paediatrician bosses said to a worried mother: “Your fridge and cupboards are full. I’ve never seen a chicken starve on a pile of grain.”

What are the signs that one may be ill?

Fatigue that is not repaired by sleep and rest and a considerable lack of energy in the morning when you get up, for several weeks;
a lack of appetite that does not concern a single meal but several, for several days or weeks;
a regular and marked weight loss (several kilos in a few weeks) in someone who is not dieting
a disappearance of sexual desire when previously it was fine (NB: in a woman, the temporary disappearance of desire can be linked to many benign things, starting with unsuitable hormonal contraception… In a man, before the age of sixty, the lasting disappearance of desire is never benign).

These symptoms should prompt you to go and see a doctor.

What are the signs that one is healthy?

I feel good but I would like it to last. What should I do about it?

You feel good, always have (you may have pain here or there or have a flu but it never lasts long)
Your weight is stable, not too high or too low
You eat your fill (not more) and have a good appetite
You sleep well, and when you sleep less, you make up for it the next night or nights
You have never been hospitalised for anything other than appendicitis or a minor accident
You are not taking any long-term medication
You are not completely sedentary (you walk at least half an hour a day)
You do not smoke
You have a regular and pleasant sexual activity
Your parents are in fairly good health and/or have reached the age of seventy without major health problems
You get along fairly well with your spouse
Your children (if you have any) are a pain in the ass but are in good shape
You don’t have (too many) money or work worries

So, reasonably, you have good reason to think that it will last. Enjoy life. You don’t know how long it will last (no one does) but if you’re going to live it, you might as well do your best to make it good…

Health advices related to diet

What should we eat to stay healthy? Nutritional guidelines based on epidemiological and clinical studies, coupled with mechanistic data, already make it possible to answer this question. My advices is to introduce nuts and legumes into the dietary recommendations, while at the same time lowering the consumption of animal proteins.

To live in good health, make sure you eat a balanced diet:

Choose unprocessed products;
eat seasonal fruit and vegetables regularly;
choose food products that come from healthy agriculture that limits the use of pesticides;
introduce nuts without added salt and cereal products into your diet (except for allergies);
hydrate your body regularly by drinking water;
Limit your consumption of red meat, cold cuts, salt and sugary products.
Other tips to improve your health

Other tips to improve your health

Tips to improve your health are not limited to food. Sleep is also an element that can have a significant impact on health.

To promote quality and restful sleep, doctors recommend

a firm mattress for overweight people ;
a slightly firm mattress for people with back pain;
a soft mattress for thin people who need support.

The health benefits of physical activity have also been proven and documented for many years. So if you can, engage in regular physical activity or active mobility (walking, cycling, etc.) to stay healthy.