Felicity’s Study Tips: The Six Dimensions of Health
This post is designed to help individuals taking the following courses: SCI 162, SCI 220, SCI 241, and health course discussing the six dimensions of health. Don’t struggle on the Homework Mountain!
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1. Physical health
2. Social health
3. Intellectual health
4. Environmental health
5. Emotional health
6. Spiritual health
Far be it from me to question the experts, but the 6 dimensions of health seem loosely tied together. While I can see strong connections between certain aspects such as physical and emotional, it is difficult to understand the spiritual health and how it ties into this health structure. Here is what the author has to say concerning spiritual health:
Spiritual health involves subscribing to a way of life or a belief in a supreme being based on a particular religious doctrine or feeling of unity with a greater force and a guiding sense of meaning or value in all life. True spiritual health typically goes well beyond an organized religion and includes many more aspects of living a balanced, introspective, and meaningful life (Donatelle, 2011, page 5).I have to say that this concept of spiritual health seems to be a bit biased. As a Buddhist, I subscribe to a way of life which is not dependent upon a higher being but instead values wisdom, logic, and mindfulness. One could argue that I am following a doctrine which is still religious in nature which I would agree with to some degree, however; what about atheists? There are millions of atheists, who do not believe in any form of religion or spirituality, are we to believe that they are unhealthy or less healthy than they could be?
The reason I point this dimension of health out is that as students we should strive to find the truth and not simply swallow and regurgitate the information given us from texts and teachers. When it comes to understanding and being healthy there is not set code or fixed measures of determination. The fact of the matter is that health is a dynamic element in humans which cannot be addressed in terms of static ideas.
To further show how this concept of health is somewhat flawed we can look at the equality of importance in the 6 dimensions. While these dimensions might have some importance they are far from being equal in nature or within the context of circumstance. For example, being emotionally healthy does not always translate into other areas of health being diminished. I have (as I am sure that many of you have) met very physically healthy people who were emotionally stunted and immature. As an example, I am pretty sure that most people would agree the Michael Vick was not emotionally or intellectually healthy when he was dog fighting, however; he certainly was physically healthy. The point of this argument is to show that the 6 dimensions of health are more of a guideline for health with some of the dimensions being more important than others.
References
Health: The Basics, Green Edition, Ninth Edition, by Rebecca J. Donatelle. Published by Benjamin Cummings. Copyright © 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc.
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