How the Concept of Healthiness Can Shape Our Eating Habits

 

The modern world is replete with evidence that the so-called "fitness culture" has not only taken a toll on our mental health, but has also had a detrimental effect on the healthiness of our economy. We know that physical activity is beneficial for the brain, but very few people are fit enough to take part in strenuous exercise. We know that eating the right foods keeps us healthy, but too much food, or the wrong kind, can be a health hazard. And it seems that being overweight is one of the most common causes of obesity.

All this points to a disturbing fact: that although nutrition and healthy diets are important for overall health, a greater emphasis should be placed on healthiness from the perspective of weight management. Why does this matter? Consider the following facts. Unrestrained eaters are likely to remain underweight, even as they indulge in massive calorie intake. Wealthy parents, watching little urban peasant women and men playing rough around the street just half-clad, join with this sad fact to infer that the healthiness of working people is due to the chronic exposure to unhealthy foods and resolve never to let their offspring bare even a shirt of their birthdays!

Being healthy, however, does not depend solely on eating the right kinds of foods. It is important to find ways to balance calorie intake and activity levels, to get regular exercise and to reduce stress. By keeping a well-balanced diet and regular physical activity regimen, healthiness is maintained, even as the number of overweight and obese people rises. And if a parent can manage to control the over-eating of one of his offspring, that child will surely grow up to be healthy and will thus contribute to the state of being vigorous and vivacious! It is, after all, through eating properly that the body transforms into the bodily that it ought to be.

The second aspect of healthiness that concerns the question of being vivacious is mental healthiness. In this area, the capacity to enjoy life as it is can play a major role. A physically healthy individual could enjoy his life to the fullest, if he could mentally also manage to live in that way. Mental diseases, such as depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, take place when mental activity is blocked and the sufferer ends up behaving as if he were in an endless cycle of brooding over his failures. Healthiness, therefore, consists in being happy with the state of one's life and the capacity for enjoyment.

One of the most powerful dimensions of perceived healthiness pertains to the number of social labels that one can bear. Having a lot of different labels associated with the concept of being healthful means that there is a large number of categories that one can belong to. The more categories there are, the harder it becomes to maintain a clear-cut distinction between oneself and the category of person who belongs to that category. If one is not careful about the types of labels that he bears, then his mental health will take on a distinctly different connotation.

Although the concept of healthiness has different dimensions, it is nevertheless possible to make a distinction. It is important to be aware that one does not have to choose between categories of perceived healthiness. One can instead choose only between labels that fall within his or her particular category. This would allow one to live comfortably despite having a limited number of food groups at his disposal.