Wellbeing

Wellbeing is a dynamic concept that includes subjective, social, and psychological dimensions as well as health-related behaviour.    

Psychological well-being is a theoretically grounded instrument that specifically focuses on measuring multiple facets of psychological well-being.

This can be attained by gaining a positive outcome that is meaningful for people and for many sectors of society because it tells us that people perceive that their lives are going well.  Good living conditions (relating to, housing, employment) are fundamental to well-being.  Tracking these conditions is important for good public health strategies.  However, many indicators that measure living conditions fail to measure what people think and feel about their lives, such as the quality of their relationships, their positive emotions and resilience, enabling the realisation of their potential, or their overall satisfaction with life.   

Negligence in these matters is often costly, time-consuming and too often sourcing inadequate remedies. Wellbeing generally includes global judgements of life satisfaction and feelings ranging from depression to joy.

How is wellbeing related to the maintenance of good health?

Good health is more than the absence of disease, it is a resource that allows people to realise their aspirations, satisfy their needs and to cope with the environment in order to live a long, productive, and fruitful life.  In this sense, good health enables social, economic and personal development fundamental to wellbeing.

Good health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over and to improve their health.  Environmental and social resources for good health can include, peace, economic security, a stable ecosystem, and safe housing.  Individual resources for good health can include, physical activity, a healthy diet, social ties, resilience, positive emotions, and autonomy.  

Good health promotional activities aimed at strengthening individual, environmental and social resources will ultimately improve well-being.  Sadly the fast pace of modern life and a lack knowledge of what to eat on a regular basis causes our wellbeing often left to chance. The food we eat due to over farming and the excessive use of soil additives will not provide what the body requires to sustain physical well-being.   

Moreover, finding the correct nutritional supplements is often a hit and miss affair. Nutrition is the substance that we take into our bodies as food and the way that influences our health. As a result, of modern day farming methods, it is highly likely that our wellbeing will be affected by the lack of sufficient nutritional content in the food we eat.  

The use of both objective and subjective measurements, when available, should be a desirable factor in determining well-being.  There are many well-being instruments available that measure self-reported well-being in different ways, depending on whether one measure of wellbeing as a clinical outcome, a population health quality outcome, for cost-effectiveness studies, or for other purposes.   For example, well-being measurements can be psychometrically based or utility based.  Psychometrically based measurements are based on the relationship between and among multiple items that are intended to measure one or more domains of well-being.  Oftentimes, any meaningful indication of levels of well-being are detrimental and is never realised until quite some damage has been heaped upon us.  

We may think we feel reasonably well or we procrastinate, convincing ourselves that a particular constant ache or pain reoccurring is bearable and if we do not think about it, it might just go away.    Utility-based measurements are based on an individual or group’s preference of a particular condition is typically anchored between 0 (death) to 1 (optimum health).  Some studies support a use of single items (such as global life satisfaction) to measure well-being parsimoniously.  Peer reports, observational methods, physiological methods, experience sampling methods, ecological momentary assessment and other methods are used by psychologists to measure different aspects of wellbeing.  Ultimately, we must take personal responsibility for our own wellbeing.  

The body then craves or tells us, if we are able to listen that it is lacking it what it needs to function at the required level to maintain well-being.  Either by a sharp drop in energy or by some other means, which we do not always understand until something major is detected. Some consume more food in an attempt to compensate, while others lose their taste for eating altogether.   

How is wellbeing measured?

Because wellbeing is subjective, it is typically measured with self-reports.  The use of self-reported measurements is fundamentally different from using objective measurements (for example, household income, unemployment levels and neighbourhood crime) for assessing wellbeing.  

What is even more frightening is the medical profession's current approach to the matter, which appears evidently to be back to front.  Without inadvertently causing any offence, who would continue to repeatedly add air to a flat tyre?  Common sense would suggest that at some stage, we would need to concern ourselves with repairing the cause?  Additionally, who would enter a room with an overflowing sink and grab the mop and not first turn off the tap?  

It has been the experience of many who are being treated with medication for one complaint, have ended up with many more prescriptions to relieve the side effects from treating the initial ailment.  Some have to carry a box to remember which and when to take their pills. Moreover, one rarely takes medication to cure, but to relieve or manage the problem.  As my grandmother used to remind me that prevention is often better than trying to finding a cure.  As a result, obtaining and maintaining our own wellbeing makes good sense.