What the Health!

So what's the big fuss about health?

As a teenager, I could be least interested in boring lectures or readouts about health. Trust me, coming from a family with healthcare workers, free health advice comes unsolicited and at the most unexpected times. Don't eat this or you will get cancer! Don't eat so much sugar or you will get diabetes! REALLY???

So here I am on my own mission of health myth-busters from a teenager's perspective and exploring through my own research and getting advice from experts (when I want) on what's real and what's not!

Having my own challenges with food allergies, I could often not eat or enjoy Birthday parties or even school lunches. Reading labels, calling restaurants about menus, and carrying Epi-pen around became second nature to me at an early age. I often found my friends without any health issues often hesitated to ask or didn't know how to help.

While thinking of a name for my passion for health issues related to youth, I first questioned what being healthy meant. Growing up I thought healthy is being normal...that is if you didn't have any medical condition or disease, you are healthy.

But what meets the eye is only the surface. People can be sad or stressed or lonely, and look "normal". So I started looking for scientific explanations and came across this one from the World Health Organization: Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Think about it for a second.

Would you call yourself healthy based on this definition?

Honestly, I feel this definition would put everyone in the basket of not being healthy. I mean, who is in a state of "complete" physical, mental, and social well-being all the time?

Are we just striving for something ideal that's unachievable?

I feel we are all works in progress. Through this journey, I hope to explore and find answers and attain state of "Well-Being"