How’s Your Health?

Ever been asked that question “how’s your health?” (or any of the derivative questions, such as “how are you” (to which you typically respond, “fine, thank you and you?”) or “how are you feeling?”)  You typically respond “fine, thanks”, unless you are talking to your doctor, and then you may be more specific. But typically when a person is asked to describe her health, she may not list her chronic conditions that may come with aging. 

Jane Brody’s March 2, 2015 blog post on Healthy in a Falling Apart Sort of Way  opens with her relating how, when filling out a medical questionnaire asking her to evaluate her health, she typically checks the box “healthy.” After sharing how she really is with the readers, she then turns to a discussion of how health is really measured, quoting some experts that “note that the ability to continue to participate in society might be more important than measured gains in health. The ability to cope with life’s ailments might be more a more important and realistic measure of health than complete recovery.”

She then considers modern medicine “[t]he widespread belief that medicine today has the potential to prevent most health problems or detect them early enough for a cure has succeeded in “medicalizing” modern life and raising the costs of medical care to unsustainable levels.” She looks at the different theories regarding preventive care, testing and early intervention. She reviews the W.H.O. factors for using health care and ends with advice from one of the experts who suggests  using caution and good judgment when choosing medical care.

So what does it mean to be healthy in 2015?