Hancock, Trevor & Perkins, Fran (1985) The Mandala of Health - A Conceptual Model and Teaching Tool. Health Education 24(1) 8-10
"Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." - World Health Organization
The Mandala of Health diagram is another way to interpret this expanded definition of health. This view of health was constructed as a means of achieving wellness along all aspects of the continuum by reducing inequities, increasing prevention, and enhancing coping. My career aspiration and mission is to play an important role in moving towards these goals.
The multitude of health determinants are intertwined and can be viewed in multi-dimensions as seen above. I would like to emphasize that human biology is only one component within this framework. We often tend to place too much emphasis on human biology and the physiology of illness and disease, instead of attacking its root cause. I would now like to urge you to consider nutrition as a major health determinant, and a “root cause” needing immediate attention.
Each health determinant in the mandala touch upon nutrition, and the mandala itself shows how nutrition can be viewed in a multi-dimensional view as well.
The Person:
Everyone is comprised of a body, mind, and spirit. Each requires nurturing and attention for growth and up-keep. Nutrition is an integral part of each of these components:
Body:
Your body is nutrition. For example, most of your body is comprised of water, just like most of your diet should be comprised of water intake. The DNA that is YOU is protein. Each part of your body is in fact, a nutrient!
Mind:
Your mind is affected in everyway by what you eat. There are countless studies showing the correlations between vital nutrients and your thoughts and intellect. Everyone knows that your mind is a blank on an empty stomach- and this multiplies infinitely when different nutrients are correlated with different mind-functions. For example, did you know that protein before bed has been shown to produce nightmares?
Spirit:
The main difference between us as humans, and the rest of the animal kingdom, is our spirit. Animals eat only for their bodily needs. They do not overeat, nor do they indulge in the pleasures of eating the way that humans do. Titillating the palate is a uniquely human obsession. People who sincerely believe they were put on earth solely in order to serve God and achieve spiritual connection will eat in order to sustain life and to have the energy to carry out their assignment on earth. Although abstract in thought, your spirit too needs nourishment to grow and develop properly.
Without the recognition that food acts as more than a physical necessity, this health determinant cannot be positioned properly to aid in changing towards healthy behaviours.
“A righteous person eats to satisfy his soul” (Proverbs 13:25).
Family:
While there are an infinite number of definitions for the 21st century families, they are still an important factor determining our health. Everyone is aware of the saying “a family that eats together, stays together”. Our families shape our attitudes towards food and our eating practices.
Personal Behaviour:
Eating is behaviour. Making food choices is behaviour. Making nutrition and your health a priority is a personal behaviour!
Psycho-Socio Environment:
Our psycho-socio environment affects our eating behaviours and our food choices. This in turn, affects our nutrition. Taken one step further, our psycho-socio environment affects the priority level to which we put nutrition and our health.
Physical Environment:
Our physical environment is made up of many things that affect our health, one of which includes the foods available to us. We’re lucky to have a multitude of foods and food choices available to us in the North American environment, now we need the tools to help us make the right food choices.
Food as a vehicle, is the recognition that food can act as more than a nutritional necessity. It can act as a vehicle for emotional support and expression.
Human Biology:
This is really the science of life in our body. Life could not exist without the energy from the proper combinations of different nutrients in our bodies.
Lifestyle:
Do you have a healthy lifestyle? A key factor in the term ‘lifestyle’ is do you live in a manor that makes nutrition and your health a priority? Your lifestyle is determined by the foods you eat, where you eat them, who you eat them with, and when you eat them!
Work:
We spend most of our lives at work, whether this be at paying jobs or not. For many, this work determines our ability to make certain food and eating choices/patterns. Our work is an important health determinant because it affects our access to some of the material things we desire. Career success and employment can be directly linked to your nutritional health- namely healthy weights, a balanced and nutritious diet, and how healthy you are or appear to be.
Self/Health Care System:
How well are you, or your health care team able to take care of yourself? Unfortunately, we live in a era where our health care system is still primarily focused on band-aid solutions. While nutrition does play an important role in fixing health problems, it is more important to prevent, or fix the root problem. Nutrition is key to prevention. Finding the right health care professional to help you make the move towards preventative health is key to making your self/health care system work for you.
Community:
An unhealthy community, fosters disease, poor judgement, poor coping etc. Food and nutrition is a big part of our community. Your community grocery store and local coffee hub foster social connections. They also shape our nutritional choices. Play a part in keeping your community healthy by making your health, and your nutrition a priority. No vaccination is needed to keep nutrition a priority and stay strong, so that you don’t foster communicable illnesses in your community.
Culture:
Our culture also shapes our nutrition by affecting our food choices, when we eat, and even how we eat and view food. The Mediterranean diet says we should eat more fruits and vegetables, the Oriental diet says we should eat smaller portions more frequently, what does the North American diet say? Is our culture fostering nutrition and health? Maybe we should take a closer look at how to make our culture more nutrition and health oriented…
Human-made environment:
Pollution is the man-made environmental equivalent to food additives and fillers? We think we’re doing something good by creating educational videos for babies, only later to find out they actually cause attention deficit disorder. We thought by making sugar and fat substitutes we were making people healthier, only to find out we were causing cancer and fertility problems. We think by giving people vitamins and herbs to take in pill form we’re making them more nutritious… Are we? Do we even have all the tools to measure what we’re missing from the foods that are not eaten in proper combinations or at all in our diets?
Biosphere:
From the point of view of this health determinant, all living things are integrated via the ecological system we live in. This determines the air we breathe, the temperature, the ‘bugs’ we’re exposed to, and even the foods and nutrients we have available to us. The biosphere we live in has dictated what we can grow and make ourselves to eat. It is up to us to use what we have available to us in a constructive, healthy way.