What is Health
🟦 1. Official WHO Definition of Health (1948 – Current)
⭐ “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
[edit | edit source]— World Health Organization, 1948
This is still the official global definition, cited by WHO, UN agencies, and all major global health bodies.
🟩 2. WHO Expanded Vision (2005, 2014+, One Health era)
[edit | edit source]These are not formal redefinitions, but clarifications adopted in WHO strategic documents:
“Health is the ability of individuals or communities to adapt and self-manage when facing physical, mental or social challenges.”
[edit | edit source]— WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH), 2005
“Health is a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living.”
[edit | edit source]— WHO Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 1986
🟧 3. Definitions & Quotes on Health by Major Thinkers and Authorities
[edit | edit source]🔬 Medical Scientists & Physicians
[edit | edit source]Hippocrates (Father of Medicine)
[edit | edit source]“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.”
Sir William Osler (Founder of Modern Clinical Medicine)
[edit | edit source]“The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.”
Rene Dubos (Microbiologist, Pulitzer Prize)
[edit | edit source]“Health is primarily a measure of each person’s ability to do and become what he wants to be.”
Albert Schweitzer (Physician, Nobel Peace Prize)
[edit | edit source]“Health is a state of equilibrium between man and the forces of the universe.”
Virchow (Founder of Cellular Pathology & Public Health)
[edit | edit source]“Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale.”
Hans Selye (Founder of Stress Theory)
[edit | edit source]“It is not stress that kills us, but our reaction to it.”
🧠 Psychologists & Mental-Health Pioneers
[edit | edit source]Carl Gustav Jung
[edit | edit source]“Good health is the ability to live with the light and the shadow within us.”
Abraham Maslow
[edit | edit source]“What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.”
Viktor Frankl
[edit | edit source]“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Martin Seligman (Founder of Positive Psychology)
[edit | edit source]“Well-being is not the absence of illness; it is the presence of meaning, engagement, and connection.”
🌍 Anthropologists, Systems Thinkers & Public Health Leaders
[edit | edit source]Margaret Mead
[edit | edit source]“We are continually faced with great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.”
Gregory Bateson
[edit | edit source]“To be healthy is to be in harmony with the patterns of the world.”
Ilya Prigogine (Nobel Prize – Complexity)
[edit | edit source]“A living system maintains health by resisting entropy through continual reorganization.”
Sir Michael Marmot (WHO Social Determinants of Health)
[edit | edit source]“Health inequalities are unjust because they are preventable.”
🧬 General Thinkers, Philosophers & Luminaries
[edit | edit source]Aristotle
[edit | edit source]“The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than mere survival.”
Leonardo da Vinci
[edit | edit source]“Happiness is the secret of all beauty. There is no beauty without happiness.”
(Applied in medical humanities as a definition of psychological health)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
[edit | edit source]“The first wealth is health.”
Mahatma Gandhi
[edit | edit source]“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.”
The Dalai Lama
[edit | edit source]“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
🟪 4. Modern Scientific Definitions of Health (Academic/Peer-Reviewed)
[edit | edit source]Huber et al., BMJ (2011)
[edit | edit source]Most influential modern alternative to WHO’s 1948 definition.
“Health is the ability to adapt and self-manage in the face of social, physical and emotional challenges.”
Lancet Public Health Commission (2017)
[edit | edit source]“Health is the resilience of individuals and systems to cope, recover, and thrive.”
ECDC (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control)
[edit | edit source]“Health is the capacity to maintain integrity and function in a changing environment.”
FAO/WHO One Health Perspective
[edit | edit source]“Health emerges from the interactions between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.”
🟦 5. The Best Modern Definition (Selected for Precision, Science, and One Health)
[edit | edit source]⭐ “Health is a resilient state of physical, mental, and social functioning that enables individuals and communities to adapt, grow, and thrive in connection with their environment.”
[edit | edit source]Why this is the best:
- Integrates resilience, adaptation, growth, function, community, environment.
- Aligns with WHO, One Health, Public Health, and Integrative Medicine.
- Fits perfectly into your doctoral work, especially the Integrative Therapeutic Garden concept.