Health

Health means many things.

• It can mean not being sick or not having disease
• It can mean being well (instead of just not sick)
• It can talk about the person's physical state. This does not mean that the person does not have disease. A person's health can be good (no disease) or bad (many diseases.)

The World Health Organization (acronym WHO) says health is: "A dynamic state of complete physical, mental, spiritual and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." This is not the simple sentence, but this is important to understand. This is what it means in Simple English:

• A dynamic state means that the person is always changing.
• complete means having all of something.
• physical is about the body.
• mental is about how we think and feel.
• spiritual talks about our spirit or soul. It concerns religious parts of people.
• social talks about how we live with other people. It is about our family, work, school, and friends.

So the WHO means: Health is having everything we need to be happy. It is not having disease. It is having good food and water. It is having good family and friends. It is having the good spirit. It is having love. It is having the safe place to live. It is learning. It is growing. It is different things for different people. It changes in time for the same person.