Who doesn’t want to be healthy?

Health is vital to keep things moving: To perform well at work, feed the family, and maintain good relationships with others. Without health, we can’t do anything.

However, how do people define “health”?

As you walk into a gym, you can see different kinds of customers.

Someone is taking a selfie.

Someone is walking on the treadmill very slowly.

Someone is screaming at the free weight area because his/ her weight is far too heavy.

If you ask them why they go to the gym, they will all tell you they want to be healthy.

So, what does being healthy mean?

World Health Organization defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

With this in mind, people use different benchmarks to define “being healthy”, according to my observations.

Enhancement (+) vs. Prevention (-)

Under a normal health condition, do you pursue better performance in everything you do, or are you worried about worse performance because of getting sick?

For example:

• Do you go to the gym because you want to build stronger muscle, or you are worried about gaining weight?
• Do you run because you want a larger lung capacity, or you are worried about high blood pressure or diabetes because you don’t exercise?

Perception vs. Performance

Do you just want to look and feel good, or do you want to perform well in everything you do?

For example:

• Someone joins a 10km run because he/ she just wants to show others that he/ she is energetic, while another person joins a full marathon because he/ she wants to break his/ her record made in the last run.
• Someone lifts weight because he/ she wants to look like a celebrity he/ she admires, while another person lifts weight because he/ she wants to live longer and happier.

Going back to the gym and meet different customers:

Very clearly, these four customers have different motivations in health and fitness. They all need different products for fulfillment.

So next time, when someone talks about health, ask him/ her more carefully what he/ she means by being healthy.

Let’s discuss.

Vincent

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