Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all (at all ages) is essential to sustainable development. The UN reports that, over the past 15 years, significant strides have been made in increasing life expectancy and reducing some of the common killers associated with child and maternal mortality. Progress has been made in increasing access to clean water and sanitation, reducing malaria, tuberculosis, polio and the spread of HIV/AIDs. However, more effort is needed to fully eradicate a wide range of diseases and address many persistent and emerging health issues.

Moreover, major disparity in the health status of the world’s population in developing and developed areas still remains. The following examples provide a glimpse of the health status of people around the world¹:

• More than six million children still die before their fifth birthday each year. Four out of every five deaths of children under five occur in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia.
• Children born into poverty are almost twice as likely to die before the age of five as those from wealthier families.
• The proportion of mothers who do not survive childbirth compared to those who do is still 14 times higher in developing regions than in developed regions.
• Only half of women in developing regions receive the recommended amount of health care they need.
• At the end of 2013, there were an estimated 35 million people living with HIV (2.1 million adolescents).
• Globally, adolescent girls and young women continue to face gender-based inequalities, exclusion, discrimination and violence, which put them at increased risk of acquiring HIV.
• A prevalence of tuberculosis and malaria still exists in the world.

Obesity now presents as a major public health epidemic in both the developed and the developing world, doubling globally between 1980 and 2014. The following examples provide a glimpse of the prevalence of obesity²:

• 2.1 billion people – nearly 30 per cent of the world’s population – are either obese or overweight.
• 39 per cent of adults aged 18 years and over were overweight in 2014, and 13 per cent were obese.
• 42 million children under the age of five were overweight or obese in 2013.

The health and wellness of the entire person was central to the message and ministry of Jesus. It continued through the Early Church and is still central today. This message remains unchanged. God loves us and cares about our spirit, soul and body. He desires that we love others as we love ourselves. This includes caring for ourselves and our bodies – the temple of the Holy Spirit.

As we journey through life, we can ask ourselves a number of questions to help move us to the right perspective. How does ignoring health and wellness, either spiritual or physical or mental, impact our ability to be a good witness to others; our ability to glorify, minister and serve God? One of the ways we can glorify God is by following a lifestyle and behaviour as far as possible that produces health and wellness rather than choosing to walk down a path leading to disease and sickness. Practically speaking, as we care for our bodies, we are more likely to remain active in serving God and others. Maybe we need a health plan!

 

 

• The Bible rates health as being very important. John, in his third letter, writes to Gaius: ‘Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well’ (3 John 2). As humans, our mind, spiritual nature and body are all interrelated and interdependent. What affects one affects the other. If our bodies are misused, our minds and spiritual natures cannot become what God ordained they should.
• Paul, in his letter to the church in Rome, writes about placing our lives before God: ‘So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognise what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you’ (Romans 12:1-2 The Message).
• There is a strong sense that our bodies belong to God. Paul also writes: ‘Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body’ (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

• Those people who are suffering through poor health. May God bring physical healing, mental strength and the right support. May we be people who believe in the power of God to work through all cicumstances.
• Compassion for the people around us. May we be aware of health issues both physical and mental. When we can provide assistance, may we do so, and may we always be concerned with the health and wellness of others. May hearts may be softened so solutions can be generated and health and other resources can be shared.
• That facilities and resources may be developed, particularly in places where they are currently lacking. May there be a willingness to implement the best care possible in all communities.

• Consider your own health. How is your diet and exericse? Do you live a healthy lifestyle? Make small improvements - walk more, eat more fruit and vegetables, eat fewer unhealthy 'treat' foods - or big ones - lose weight or take up a new sport.
• How do you care for your spiritual health? Do you spend enough time studying the Bible and in prayer?
• Support initiatives taking place that work to improve health around the world. Many territories of The Salvation Army, and other organisations, work in developing countries on health projects - can you volunteer time or donate money to help this?

Tags: SDG3: Good Health and Well-Being