My perception of wellness has always been a conscious effort to enhance one’s overall health and physical well-being, whether through diet, exercise, and/ or mental stimulation. My thoughts about wellness and how it can positively impact my body revolve around staying physically fit, maintaining a healthy diet, and reducing stress. However, based on this week’s reading material, I feel as though my understanding of wellness only scratches the surface of what the term means. It is the ability to live one’s life optimally with meaning and vitality. This encompasses the emotional, spiritual, social, physical, environmental, intellectual, and interpersonal well-being of a person. Nonetheless, with the course, I hope to expound on my perception of wellness to integrate it into my professional life as a Case Manager in hopes of becoming a licensed counselor someday.
The study of wellness concerning the individual and society has been approached through the four lenses of health, which attempts to elaborate on how the overall society is affected by wellness. These include social science, humanities, history, and applied/natural sciences. Social sciences mainly touch on the aspects that gender equality play in wellness and health care access. Societal stereotypes and norms have historically determined the wellness and health behavior of men and women. Thus, the concept of gender equality has direct links to the historical view that seeks to explain how things were in the past and how they have changed over time.
Humanities bring the aspect of cultural contexts as well as their similarities and differences. On its part, natural sciences are interested in developing questions and offering practical solutions to specific processes through observation, prediction, and description of the natural world. All these lenses see wellness as gender-based, a preserve of men. This impacts the general population in the sense that only men are at the forefront when it comes to matters of health and wellness (Wickramasinghe & Bodendorf, 2020). This approach is, however, changing as many women are increasingly taking their wellness and health concerns seriously. It is predicted that with easy access to digital gadgets that convey various instructions and practices on wellness, more women will be involved. I will implement what I have learned in this course by developing a wellness mobile application that will expand the reach of many users.
Reference
Wickramasinghe, N., & Bodendorf, F. (2020). Delivering Superior Health and Wellness Management with IoT and Analytics. Springer.