Jeffrey Bland, PhD, presents a short personal reflection on the meaning of health. He cites the World Health Organization’s 1946 definition ("a state of complete physical, mental and social well being, not merely the absence of disease") and links that construct to the Institute for Functional Medicine and the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute, then illustrates the concept with a story about a civic-minded Boy Scout who exemplifies thriving physical, mental and social functioning.
Chapters
So what is health? It's a really interesting question. If we're all aspiring to improve health and reduce disease, it takes us back really to how we all would define the term health. And I'm reminded that in 1946, June 19th of that year, International Conference on World Health, part of the World Health Organization, came up with a definition of health. And most of us has heard this. And it's health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Well, it was this construct that really led to the development of the Institute for Functional Medicine in which we were looking beyond the disease concept. We were looking at how to improve function in individuals that is associated with this absence of. Of physical, mental or social unwellness. And from that, then ultimately was born the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute. Because we recognize that many of the variables that we control every day through our lifestyle, our environment, our diet, how we live, act and be on the planet, influence then ultimately what we call our health outcomes. And I'm reminded of that very strongly with an example that today just hit me like a ton of bricks. We all can pull these examples up in our life. And this one is an example of a young man that came. Came into my office some years ago, eight or nine years ago, actually, when he was eight or nine years old, who wanted to interview me. He was a member of the Boy Scouts, going on to get his master accreditation in the Scouting world, and was assembling his merit badges. And he wanted to interview me because he had to interview some business leaders. And he sat down with an extraordinary list of questions. And as I said, listened to him interview me. I recognized that he had a wisdom that was remarkable beyond his years. And I started to think of what it is that we're generating in our youth as it relates to health. And he really, to me, as I was listening to his answers and questioning of me, I recognized that here was kind of the picture of someone who really embodied that spirit of good health. He's the kind of person who advocated with his parents that maybe he should go and cook meals for people at our local mission who were less fortunate. So his mother, being a great supporter of his advocacy, assembled all the food and down they went to the local mission. And there he prepared meals for the men that were at this facility. He's a guy who really was thoughtful about world peace. He's a guy who was thoughtful about connections to the environment. In fact, he won his final merit badge, Order of the Arrow, when he was involved with or mobilizing his friends to develop a park on one of our local islands in Puget Sound in which they built bridges and little conversation areas along this one mile long trail through the forest that was dedicated to individuals that had passed away in the area. Just kind of as a gift, a remarkable soul. And then his parents come to me and say, you know, as a high school junior, an 11th grader, he's at an interesting juncture in his life. Now I want to point out that this family is a very unique family. Not unique to America, but unique in the extent that his parents were both born in India and he is a first generation American citizen from Indian descent parents. And so he went on to, as an 11th grader, take the National Merit Scholar national examination, the test that literally tens of thousands of students in the United States take to demonstrate their academic merit. And lo and behold, the results of the exam came back. And not surprising, this individual, this master of the universe, so to speak, at 17 years of age, scored a complete perfect score in every component of this exam. In fact, he was off scale of the tens of thousands of students taking this. He was a step above, so to speak, in this. Whether it's verbal or whether it's mathematical skills or reasoning or whatever, across the board, a perfect score. Now I wonder, what is health? This embodies the spirit of someone who, by the definition of the World Health Organization and the definition of what we're doing in functional medicine and plmi, would really be defined as the master of health, aspiring to be the best he can be, achieving his genetic potential, finding the ways to be nurtured in the world and to give back. It's a very, very powerful concept. And it struck me today as I was reflecting on this, that there are lessons to be learned from many, many people. We're all teachers of certain things. And this construct of health goes way beyond just understanding the mechanisms. It really has to do with the connections, it has to do with the relationships, and it has to do with the affirmation of being human. A really powerful example of what we're trying to aspire to achieve. When we take talk about functional health or personalized lifestyle healthcare.
