What comes to mind when you hear the word wellness? Do you immediately think about your physical health? Should I go on a diet? Is this about taking a yoga class? See wellness is a big business. According the McKinsey global consulting firm it is a $1.5 Trillion market from anti-aging products, health tourism, sport equipment and even eating lifestyles. Their global study of wellness in six different countries and over 7500 participants revealed there is a difference in perception between how consumers understand wellness and how integrative health professionals define wellness.
In the general consumer market place, wellness is defined as
We are much more than our physical health. Wellness is made up of many dimensions. The original term of holistic wellness is not as new of a concept as one might think.
- Collegiate Greek sororities, like Alpha Sigma Alpha national sorority, promoted its members to strive for four aims in a well rounded life of physical, intellectual, social, and spiritual dimensions dating back to 1901.
- The expanded original term of wellness was documented medically with the work of Dr. Halbert Dunn in 1959 with his concept of high level wellness including physical, mind, spirit, and the environment.
- There were leadership books, I Dare You by William Danforth -founder of Purina Foods, who stated great leaders needed the balance of four square living with physical, mental, social, and spiritual dimensions.
- Dr. Bill Hettler at University of Wisconsin expanded the wellness dimensions as he worked with college students to include the following dimensions: physical, intellectual, social, spiritual, emotional, occupational. Later, others added in the environmental dimension to wellness.
We have to expand our understanding of wellness beyond our physical appearance and health to a more integrative biopsychosocial model to define wellness with many dimensions.
