What does health mean? When I ask this question the answers I receive are different, but they do have similar undertones. I’ve gotten responses that health is only based on how much you weigh, only eating vegetables, and overall being miserable at the constant thinking about what it means to be a healthy person. Health truly will look different for everyone. I’m going to tell you a little about my personal story to get you out of the mindset that weight=health because remember IT DOES NOT! Back in 2020 I was the heaviest I had ever been and was definitely seeing that mid 20’s weight gain that women go through. Now let’s jump to 2021, I had moved back home to Iowa due to the pandemic and started seeing drastic weight loss. This was actually strange to me because my eating habits hadn’t changed much and I hadn’t been to a commercial gym in ages. I chalked it up to a lot less stress in my life (which I had broken off in 2020), having a more active job, and unfortunately 6 runs of tonsillitis and constant antibiotics. In less than 6 months I had dropped 70lbs. This is something that is very dangerous for you and your organs and if my weight hadn’t leveled out in July I would have seen a doctor because it is concerning. Let’s jump to 2022, after being sick and on some form of antibiotic or steroid every month in 2021 I now weigh less than I did in high school, regardless of trying to gain weight and have been experiencing some health symptoms that are alarming. Doctor’s and Specialist’s ran the tests and came back with “nothing is wrong with you, you are a lean young person”. I went to functional medicine instead after not being taken seriously. Turns out I have an overgrowth of a few different bad gut bacteria that is causing leaky gut syndrome, malnourishment and not able to absorb nutrients properly, and causing my liver and kidneys to overwork themselves trying to excrete and filter out the toxins in my bloodstream that my gut is leaking out. This in turn threw off my thyroid and I now have borderline hypothyroidism. If you just look at me, you wouldn’t know this, you would just think what my prior doctors did, she’s a young, slender, healthy person. Remember WEIGHT DOES NOT EQUAL HEALTH!!! The overall umbrella of health and the underlying tones of responses to the question of “what is health” include: mental, physical, and spiritual. We want to be in the right mindset, we want to be happy and stress free. We want to be able to do the activities we want to do with no issue and live a long life. We want to not have to rely on medication. We still want to enjoy our food and fuel our bodies with what feels good without constantly thinking negatively about it. So I’ll leave you with this question to ponder: What does health mean to you?
