W is for Wellbeing and the WHO definition of health

Although we are prepared to spend dizzying sums on health care no one seems quite sure what health is. The World Health Organization made a bold offer in 1948. Their definition of health is ‘ not merely the absence of disease or infirmity but a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being ’. But this utopian vision is an unattainable ideal, bearing no relation to the struggles of real people in an imperfect world. Its faith in an attainable Nirvana is touching, but not credible. It is a flagrantly modernistic statement, and, like a statue of Lenin, it appears now as the ironic icon of a bygone age. The WHO definition sees us as closed, knowable systems where imperfections should be fixed. Logically, as none of us is in this complete state of wellbeing, we are all in need of medical intervention to correct ‘abnormalities’. …