Has anyone ever asked you what health means to you? It sounds like such a simple question. Almost too simple. Like one of those questions you answer too quickly because you assume you already know. Health means being healthy. Very helpful. Thank you, brain. Excellent work today.
But when I was writing The Awakened Body, I knew this question deserved more than a casual shrug and a vague answer about eating less junk and more vegetables, moving more, and trying not to fall apart before noon. I had spent years working on my health, my food, my weight, my movement, my habits, my discipline, my self-talk, my energy, my stress, my aging, my spirituality, and what it actually means to live in a body I was no longer trying to ignore, punish, or drag around like an uncooperative suitcase.
When I tried to articulate what health actually meant to me on paper, I realized I did not really have a clear definition. I had ideas. I had instincts. I had plenty of things I did and did not want when it came to my health. But writing it down forced me to get honest about what health meant to me beyond weight, food rules, lab numbers, and whatever wellness noise happened to be shouting the loudest that week.
Along the way, it became obvious to me that if I was going to truly commit to my health, I needed to define it. Not in a textbook way. Not in a “wellness brochure written by a committee” way. In a real way. A personal way. A way that could actually help guide my choices.
Because here is the problem: we throw the word health around like everyone agreed on the definition at some secret wellness meeting. Most of us are using the same word, but we are not talking about the same thing.
For some people, health means not being sick. For others, it means being thin. For some, it means being strong, calm, fertile, energetic, spiritually connected, mentally steady, financially secure, sexually alive, emotionally regulated, or environmentally conscious. Those definitions clearly come from very different headspaces.
And if you have never defined health for yourself, there is a very good chance someone else has defined it for you. Diet culture has a definition. The food industry has a definition. The fitness industry has several definitions. Your doctor may have shaped part of one. Of course, the pharmaceutical industry most certainly has its own definition. Your family may have handed you one. Social media has thousands, and they all come with discount codes. You get the drift.
The question is not whether you have absorbed definitions of health. Guaranteed, you have. We all have. The better question is whether any of them actually belong to you. And even if you think you already have a definition, it may be worth asking whether it still fits. Sometimes what we call “my definition” is really an old belief, an inherited standard, or a goal we outgrew. And frankly, as we grow, our definitions are likely to change. Guess what? We are allowed to change the map.
Is Health More Than Not Being Sick?
A very loud yes. But for a long time, I think many of us were taught to think of health as the absence of something. No disease. No pain. No diagnosis. No extra weight. No obvious crisis. If nothing is screaming loudly enough, we assume we must be fine.
But “not falling apart” is a very low bar for health. Existing without an obvious crisis is not the same thing as living well. Health is not just the absence of disease. And it is definitely not being thin. That one needs to be said clearly because diet culture has spent decades convincing us that fat is bad and thin equals healthy, and that is simply not the full truth.
Deep inside, we all know that a thin body is not automatically a healthier body. That thin person can be stressed, depleted, inflamed, disconnected, exhausted, undernourished, lonely, anxious, and completely out of relationship with their own body. Meanwhile, someone in a larger body may be actively building strength, improving metabolic health, eating nourishing food, sleeping better, healing their relationship with movement, and learning to listen to themselves in ways they never had before.
This is why a real definition matters. If health only means weight loss, then every choice gets filtered through the question, “Will this help me lose weight?” That question can take people to some miserable places. I know, because I spent plenty of time in that neighborhood. The parking is terrible, and nobody there looks well-rested.
When health becomes bigger than weight, the questions change. You start asking, “Does this support my energy? Does this help me feel strong? Is this helping my body function better? Is this choice aligned with the life I actually want? Am I listening, or am I just performing wellness for an imaginary panel of judges?” Those are better questions. They do not let you off the hook. They just put you on the right hook.
Why You Need a Health Definition
Companies, families, and even some individuals have mission statements, vision statements, documented values, strategic plans, brand standards, and so on. And the basic idea behind those tools is useful. A documented definition of what companies, families, and individuals stand for can help keep focus, support better decisions, and prevent people from chasing every shiny object that catches their attention.
Your health needs something similar. Not because your body is a corporation. Please no. Nobody needs a quarterly performance review from their pancreas. But you do need a clear sense of what you are trying to build, protect, strengthen, and honor.
A definition of health gives your choices direction. It becomes a filter. It helps you decide what deserves your attention and what needs to be released. It helps you notice when you are chasing someone else’s goal instead of living according to your own values.
Without a clear definition, “getting healthy” can become an endless list of things to add to your routine. Drink this. Avoid that. Track this. Buy that powder. Wake up early. Cold plunge your feelings. Eat like a caveman. Eat like a rabbit. Fast. Don’t fast. Count everything. Trust nothing. Somehow become peaceful while doing twelve things before breakfast. I’m stressed just writing that list because I’ve lived all of that.
But when you define health for yourself, you stop chasing every trend just because it has good branding. You become more discerning. You can look at a habit, food choice, workout, relationship, schedule, or thought pattern and ask, “Does this support the kind of health I’ve defined for myself?”
That question is powerful because it brings your daily choices back to your own life. Not the influencer’s life. Not your twenty-year-old body. Not your mother’s expectations. Not the old diet culture script still trying to run the meeting from the back of the room. Your life. Your body. Your definition.
My Four Pillars of Health
In The Awakened Body, I define health through four pillars: physical, mental/emotional, spiritual, and social. That framework made sense for me because I needed health to be more than a body project. My transformation was not just about losing weight. Yes, I lost 140 pounds, and that was a major physical change. But the deeper change was learning how to live differently inside my own life.
For me, physical health includes eating the right foods, maintaining a weight that feels good for my body, engaging in regular movement, finding hormonal balance, sleeping well, and avoiding harmful habits like smoking, drinking, and consuming added sugar and processed foods.
Mental and emotional health includes stress, fear, self-talk, shame, overwhelm, gratitude, empathy, emotional patterns, and old beliefs. We can’t separate the body from the thoughts and emotions running through it, and we need to be open to hearing the body instead of always letting our minds rule the roost.
Spiritual health matters because we are not just machines trying to hit the correct protein target and get our steps in. We need meaning, connection, and inner guidance. For some people, that comes through religion. For others, it comes through the universe, nature, energy, intuition, creativity, service, purpose, or simply living in alignment with personal values. The label matters less than the connection.
Social health matters because the people around us affect our nervous system, our choices, our sense of belonging, our stress levels, and our ability to grow. Relationships can support healing, and they can also make it harder. Sometimes health requires connection. Sometimes it requires boundaries. Sometimes it requires realizing that not everyone gets a front-row seat to the new version of you.
That framework helped me, but the point is not for you to borrow my definition and call it done. The point is to stop long enough to ask what health actually needs to mean in your own life. And honestly, it has changed a bit since the book was published as I’ve learned more on my own personal health journey. I’ve added a stronger focus on metabolic health and reducing plastics and other environmental toxins to my physical health category.
The Pillars Do Not Stand Alone
The thing about the pillars is that they do not operate in neat little separate boxes. Your body is not running a tidy filing system labeled physical, mental/emotional, spiritual, and social. It is all connected in there. Annoyingly connected, sometimes, but connected.
This is why a narrow definition of health can fail us. If you only focus on food but ignore stress, you will be missing a huge part of the picture. If you only focus on workouts but ignore sleep, your body may eventually have some thoughts of its own. If you only focus on weight but ignore your emotional life, you may change the outside while the inside continues running the same old program.
Health is not one thing. It is a relationship between many parts. That is why defining it matters. There are no real shortcuts here, and no pill or shot can do this work for you. You have to know what health means to you before you can truly live in alignment with it.
And that definition does not come from your head. It comes from your heart. It comes from the honest place that knows what kind of life you are trying to build, what kind of body you want to live in, and what kind of choices will help you move in that direction. Once you have that definition, your plan becomes clear and much easier to follow. Not because every choice becomes effortless, but because your journey finally has a better guidance system.
Your Definition May Not Look Like Mine
My four pillars became the framework that helped me understand health more clearly at that particular point in my life. But your definition may include other components as well as other dimensions. For some people, financial health is deeply connected to overall health. That makes sense. Money stress can affect sleep, relationships, food choices, mental health, and the ability to access care or support.
For others, environmental health matters. The home you live in, the air you breathe, the products you use, the noise around you, the chemicals you are exposed to, and the land or community you feel connected to can all influence well-being.
Some people may include familial health, sexual health, intellectual health, creative health, professional health, or community health. None of that is wrong. In fact, that is the point. Health is personal because, well, your life is personal.
That does not mean health is whatever we randomly declare it to be while ignoring reality. I cannot define health as eating cookies in bed while avoiding all movement and then act shocked when my body files a complaint. The body still has needs. Biology still exists. Consequences remain annoyingly committed to their role.
But your definition should reflect your values, your season of life, your body’s needs, your lived experience, and the kind of future you are trying to build. A woman in perimenopause may need a different health definition than she had at thirty. Someone recovering from burnout may need a different definition than someone training for a race. Someone healing from food addiction may need a different definition than someone who has never had to untangle that relationship.
Someone rebuilding after loss, illness, trauma, divorce, caregiving, or a major life change may need health to mean something deeper than “eat more kale and try Pilates.” Although, for the record, I do like kale. I just do not think it should be asked to carry the entire spiritual load.
But I’m guessing most of us want some version of feeling alive, grounded, capable, clear, connected, free from pain and disease, and strong in our own lives. The point is, that will look and feel different for each of us.
Your Turn
Defining health is one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves. Not because the answer will be neat and tidy, but because it gives our journey direction. For me, it helped stop health from being an abstract idea and turned it into something real, personal, and aligned with my own body, values, and life.
And having that definition might even save you from spending years following diet plans, rules, trends, programs, workout routines, supplement protocols, and wellness advice without ever stopping to ask whether any of it is moving you toward the life you actually want. Because that is how people end up doing “healthy” things that do not feel healthy at all.
So here is a simple place to start: write it down. Not a perfect definition. Not a polished manifesto. Just one honest paragraph that begins with, “For me, health means…” Then read it back and ask yourself whether it sounds like your actual life, your actual body, your actual values, and the kind of future you are trying to build. If it sounds like something you inherited, outgrew, copied, or absorbed from diet culture with better lighting, that is useful information.
In The Awakened Body, I included a worksheet to help readers work through this question because I do not think it deserves a quick answer. “What does health mean to you?” sounds simple until you actually sit with it. Then you realize it reaches into everything: your body, your mind, your emotions, your relationships, your spirit, your habits, your future, and the way you want to feel while you are still here living this life.
You can find the Clarity Tool Worksheet on page 17 of The Awakened Body. I also offer it for free, and you can click HERE to download it. The worksheet does not define health for you, because that would defeat the whole point. It prompts you through a series of questions to help you better understand your own health journey, your goals, and what health needs to mean in your actual life. From there, you can begin shaping a definition that belongs to you.
So ask yourself the question: What does health mean to you? Not to the internet. Not to the diet industry. Not to your mom. Not to your old self. Not to the person selling powdered promises in a jar. To you.