6 Components of health

As mentioned in the introductory post, the concept of health is divided into 6 sub categories: Physical health, social health, mental health, emotional health, spiritual health and environmental health. To acquire the healthiest lifestyle of all, one must try to achieve getting the 6 components into balance. To be truly healthy, one must take into consideration all the components, and try to achieve personal wellness. Wellness is described as the achievement of a person’s best in all six components of health.

We are humans, we make mistakes and we don’t always succeed in everything. It is impossible that we can be perfect in every single area, but we can set goals to try to achieve the maximum health as possible. This health issue is often taking into consideration by older people, when they realize in what bad health issue they are and unfortunately there is not an undo button to change it back and go to the past. The habits we, teenagers, grow now will remain forever in our future life, if we learn to live healthy with the 6 components, we will be the happiest people in the world. I propose that we start thinking about the future with the decisions we make now, because the earlier one start the best one’s health and development will be. This matter is important, everything we do now will contribute to our future

This blog is meant to guide you, teens, through the healthiest lifestyle one can get, but first, you must know what the 6 components are composed of.

1) Physical health:

This component deals with nutrition, how balanced a healthy one eats, exercises, and rests. I bet many teenagers, even myself once, thought being physically health meant having abs and being the fittest and sportiest person in the grade. It is a factor that can determine how physically healthy you are, but it is not everything. It is actually how your body functions, that you are free of diseases, that your organs and everything in your body works properly.

2) Social health:

This has to do with the quality of relationships one has, such as friends, family members, teachers, and others one is in contact with.

To achieve wellness in this area one must respect others the way they are, avoid people who treat you with no respect and tolerance (bullies), know how to handle problems by assertively talking and listening, without the need of fights, expresses needs to others, avoids peer pressure. Again, a common thought one has is that being healthy with this means being the most popular kid at school, but in reality those are the ones that suffer the most in this area. The arrival of Facebook and other virtual social networks has made us think that social health is guaranteed through the computer, but it is actually about the personal contacts and promoting the union of people for a common matter. Only through relationships built by direct contact one will be able to develop social abilities that will help teens be better citizens and better persons. Through this, one builds strong and decided leaders that modern days societies need.

3) Mental Health:

Is the ability to recognize reality and cope with the demands of daily life.

In this area, one must be free of mental disorders, such as hypochondria, phobia, bipolar disease, schizophrenia, etc. It also means having high self esteem, being confident and comfortable about oneself, enjoys trying new things, and knowing how to relate to others and make choices.

As teens, we are growing, our body, our brains, everything, so it is key we learn how to detect a problem we are facing and deal it by talking because if not it can get worse over time.

Some symptoms someone might be suffering is feeling extremely sad, worthless and hopeless, often very angry or very worried, feel grief for a long time after a death. There are treatments available for people who suffer this, but it better to avoid the disorder getting worse by talking first.

4) Emotional health

Everything is changing for us, not only our body, but our relationships, our interests, our focuses in university and our future job, etc. We can also be in bad moods and tempers a lot of the time. Emotional health is expressing your emotions in a positive, non-destructive way. A healthy person in this area would ask for help when sad to cope with unpleasant emotions and not get overwhelmed by them. The most common struggles are stress, depression and anxiety, and they can really affect a teen’s lives. This component Is strongly related to mental health, because everything goes in our brains. The same solution as the previous one is the word, talk. I know it can be really hard for us to express ourselves, I even recognize that myself, whether we are shy or just because we want to keep it to ourselves, but everyone is going to tell you that talking solves everything, and that is true.

5) Spiritual health

Is maintaining harmonious relationships with other living things and having spiritual direction and purpose in life. There are different ways people understand this component, since it means different things for different people. For example, for some people it means practicing religion or for others it means to understand their purpose in life.  It is mostly something personal, it varies depending on each person, but mostly something that helps one or others. It also includes living according to one’s ethics, morals and values. This component is the hardest for us teens to realize how important it is, we even reject it and try to avoid it. We should spend an hour or so of a week doing something about it, like going to church.

6) Environmental health

Is keeping your air and water clean, your food safe and the land around you enjoyable. This is all about the impacts of our surroundings in our health. To be healthy in this area, one must not only protect the food, water, and land from oneself, but globally, the whole world’s environment, like recycling paper, glass, etc and doing community service. It is considered one more component because it is targeted towards preventing disease and creating health-supportive environments, like asthma, cancer, food poisoning, e coli, etc.


Sources:
my.hrw.com (online textbook where pictures where found)
http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/mabel2.htm
http://www.teenmentalhealthproblems.com/teen-social-health-and-social-phobia.html
http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/articles/650.html
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/default.htm
http://www.emotionalhealthclinic.com.au/index.cfm?page_id=1324
http://www.cdc.gov/environmental/
http://www.focusas.com/EmotionalHealth.html
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/teenhealth.html
http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/children/parents/parents-teens/590.html
http://www.tru.ca/wellness/spiritual.html
http://www.whatispublichealth.org/what/index.html#Environmental
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/teenmentalhealth.html
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/sgr/adoles.htm
http://www.smith.edu/ourhealthourfutures/emotional.html