Being Healthy & Fit, are They the Same?

In today society, people are looking more into improving their quality of life and many are getting more concerned with their body health conditioning and status. However, a lot of people still had the wrong interpretation for Health and Fitness definition and often regard healthy alone to comprise of one being physically fit.

Health is defined as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO 1994).

Fitness, on the other hand has a more specific definition, which is defined as the ability to perform a certain task. Taking for instance, is one physically fit to climb a flight of twelve story stairs without stopping, or is one physically fit enough to run a half marathon within a certain time constraint? These usually involve aerobic fitness, which is a measure of how well your blood transports oxygen around the body, and how well your muscles utilize the oxygen.

Thus, one can be healthy but may not be physically fit enough to perform the above task. In order to be physically fit to perform a certain task, the body needs to undergo progressive training and overloading to condition the body for the task; this usually involves undergoing a specific training program.

On the other hand, one can be physically very fit but not totally healthy. Why do we say so, elite athletes are always associated with being physically very fit. However most of the time, they do experience some form of sports injuries due to their extensive training, thus, they are not considered to be totally healthy.

When we talk about improving the quality of life, we often look for being both healthy and fit. To achieve health and fitness, proper and systematic exercise regime and nutrition diet is a must.

Taichi has been proven scientifically to provide practitioners with both health and fitness benefits, given proper systematic training methods and procedure. Taichi provides a very good form of workout for the mind and body relaxation and also helps in improving the 3 body energy system (anaerobic alactic, anaerobic lactic & aerobic).