Wide reaching implications of wellness
Everybody has their own definition of wellness.
Putting a scientific definition to wellness means a state of…
- philosophical
- psychological
- physiological and
- sociological balance
…where there is no illness.
Whether or not we are an…
- Individual,
- a National Health Service
- or an Organisation
…dealing with wellness, these four overriding constructs of wellness need to be considered in the measurement, understanding and supply of wellness for the whole person or the society or the business plan.
Implementing wellness
One of the true and unfortunate facts is that the implementation of wellness is not the concern of the majority of a western societies population. But as governments it is one of their major concerns and as businesses we are trying to deal with these concerns. Spiralling health costs due to illness that is totally lifestyle driven is becoming a huge debilitating cost to the public purse . In most western national social service at least 50% of their costs are really public health costs therefore in reality the public health costs are really twice as much as they are stated.
The route to wellness
Depending on what statistic one uses, over 60% of the UK population do not concern themselves with their wellness and probably only 10% actually spend enough time and energy on their health to achieve results that provide wellness. Yet probably very close to 100% of the population know the route to wellness. The solution is simple: move properly and eat properly, the implementation of the solution is difficult. The reason APATHY. This is what causes this huge health and social budget deficit that governments are facing in trying to deal with illness.
The cost of apathy
As stated above the main cause of these public health care costs is poor lifestyle choices and adding to this the apathy to engage in good lifestyle choices. The government or business that can develop the unicorn concept that can motivate people to take up moderate exercise and change their diet to healthy choices will save the country billions and make billions in doing so.
Encouraging activity
It was not until 2015 that the United Kingdom’s government started to try and motivate the British people to take on a healthy lifestyle. It was not until then, that they became aware of academic research that has been around for years, that states moderate exercise such as walking can have significant improvements in one’s health, in a relatively short period of time. In the UK it was not the Health Department that did this study it was Revenue.
As a director of a UK body interested in increasing activity, in 2017 / 18 we saw the mandate of Sport England being totally changed. Sport was removed from their offering and ACTIVITY added. Sport was for that 10 to 20% that I noted above, not for the 80%. This is the right path but has not succeeded due to public apathy.
What about the ageing population?
I am sure when someone read above, that I stated that the spiralling health costs was due to lifestyle choices, they questioned and said what about the ageing population. This is true, but failing to take up a healthy life style in ones fifty’s, sixty’s, seventy’s and eighty’s is a life style choice. Our bodies in our twenty’s, thirty’s and forties can deal with a lot of mal-adaptive activity, but in the second half of our life not so much. But what we can do in our second half is to use exercise and nutrition to correct and actually heal the damage we have done in the first half. This is a scientific fact.
Be younger
It is also been known by science that by eating a healthy diet, and taking up a fitness life style including strenuous exercise three to four times a week that includes cardio, stretching and weight training this promotes health not just in physiological health but in all the health constructs listed above. There is also scientific proof that taking up this type of committed lifestyle to health one can reduce ones biological age to their chronological age by 30 years or more. (As a footnote to this statistic of the chronological age is based on Joe and Jane average, not so good a bench mark.)
Longer, active and happier life
Whether an individual takes up the moderate or strenuous wellness lifestyle there is a spectrum of positive health outcomes based on the effort one puts in. However if these individuals come down with non-lifestyle type illnesses or injury, they respond far better than those that have not looked after their health and get back to wellness faster. For an individual this means a longer, active and happier life in good health without disability virtually to the end of life, and for governments a lot less cost. For those that do not look after their health, it means that in their later years there experiencing various degrees of disability and health challenges, they are far more a burden on the health system.
Genetic analysis for a correct wellness plan
Science has now let us target an individual’s health potential in a far more focused way. Through analysing an individual’s genetics we can now project how a person will react to a specific exercise regime and nutritional plan. This means we will get in the potential range a correct wellness plan for this persons personal make up. Then by adding epigenetics to the mix we can study the improvement or non-improvement by the analysis of the clients gene expression to the existing nutrition and exercise plan and then fine tune the results to exactly achieve the highest level of fitness the individual can achieve. Success is a very high motivational factor, that can sponsor a person to maintain a program, and maintain wellness.
Author:
Conclusions and summaries taken from a pre-Phd presentation* by John Hubbell, founder and director of Wellbridge Financial.
*What would be the economic affect in the reduction of general disability after the age of 65 to the United Kingdom’s national health costs? A study into biological ageing.