Today, 7 April 2023, the world celebrates the 76th World Health Day.
Established in 1948 during the first World Health Organisation (WHO) Assembly, it aims to promote awareness of health and well-being worldwide.
World Health Day is one of 11 official global health campaigns marked by the WHO.
The aim of the WHO is in fact the achievement by all populations of the highest possible level of health, understood not only as the absence of disease or infirmity, but as a state of total physical, mental and social well-being.
In Italy, health is an inalienable right of citizens, protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Helsinki)(1948) and by the Constitution (art. 32).
The day is an opportunity to promote global awareness of crucial public health topics of interest to the international community, and to launch long-term programmes on the topics in focus.
Each year, a specific theme is chosen for the day, highlighting an area of particular interest to WHO.
The theme chosen by WHO for 2024 is 'My health, my right' to celebrate health as a basic human right.
In the words of the WHO, the event aims to
"uphold the right of everyone everywhere to have access to quality health services, education and information, as well as clean water, clean air, good nutrition, quality housing, decent working and environmental conditions and freedom from discrimination."
A right which, unfortunately, a large section of the world's population still does not enjoy today.
HEALTH: ITS MULTIPLE INTERPRETATIONS FROM HISTORY TO THE PRESENT DAY
In Greek antiquity, health was conceived as a gift from the gods and illness was considered a magical-religious phenomenon. With Hippocrates, the perspective changed completely according to the principle of the 'natural healing force', which conceived of the human body as being animated by a life force that tended by nature to rebalance the disharmonies caused by disease. This approach was gradually superseded over time. In the 20th century, the first medical specialisations began to develop. According to some authors, this led to a gradual abandonment of the holistic approach to the sick person in favour of an exclusively biological study focused on a specific organ or system.
HEALTH: THE IMPORTANCE OF CARING AND GOING
Three domains of health have already been defined by the WHO: physical, mental and social.
Today, we are becoming increasingly aware of how health is not only a right but also a fundamental value. Man is a perfect machine, so every aspect of our lives needs to be in balance and harmony, within ourselves and with the world. There is no physical health if there is no mental health, both of which are kept balanced by social health.
We could imagine health as a boat: the sail is physical health, the wind is mental health, the sea is social health.
If the boat has a crack, it will begin to rock, no longer responding to the currents, and will begin to sink, affecting the integrity of the sea.
If the wind is strong, the boat will rock and may capsize while the sea is stormy.
If the sea is polluted, nothing will be done about the goodness of the wind, which may be either excessive or absent, and the boat will in time risk rotting.
In summary, every aspect of health seen as the big picture is dependent on the integrity and purity of the others.
If we then wanted to go beyond the picture provided by the WHO, we could identify micro realities in which it is important to consider our relationships with ourselves and the life around us, i.e. 'being healthy with': family, school, friends and how we are perceived by others, health with ourselves and our subconscious, with the world and the meaning of life, health with what we eat and how we feel about our bodies, with nature and the knowledge that we are unique and rare human beings.
Health is one of the most important things in life. And not only in a self-centred sense: being well can also be reflected in knowing that other living beings (even those we do not know) are well, happy and healthy; knowing that every person has the right to live and feel positive emotions.
In an increasingly hectic and corrupt world, it is meaningful and special to set aside time for yourself and the people or things you love.
I like to think that health is closely related to love: like in a flowering field, love can make even the flower that appeared to be most withered grow vigorous and shining.