Top 40 Health Quotations

"Health is the thing that makes you feel that now is the best time of the year." -- Franklin P. Adams
"He who has health, has hope. And he who has hope, has everything." -- Arabian Proverb
"To get rich never risk your health. For it is the truth that health is the wealth of wealth." -- Richard Baker
"There's lots of people who spend so much time watching their health, they haven't got time to enjoy it." -- Josh Billings
"Health has its science, as well as disease. " --Elizabeth Blackwell
"Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. " --Erma Bombeck
"Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do practice? " --George Carlin
"The poorest man would not part with health for money, but the richest would gladly part with all their money for health. " --Charles Caleb Colton
"As I see it every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself." --Adelle Davis
"Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady." --Francois de La Rochefoucauld
"You can set yourself up to be sick, or you can choose to stay well." -- Wayne Dyer
"Give me health and a day and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous." --Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The first wealth is health." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing." --Redd Foxx
"Health is not valued till sickness comes." --Dr. Thomas Fuller
"A Hospital is no place to be sick." --Samuel Goldwyn
"Health is not simply the absence of sickness." --Hannah Green
"Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos - the trees, the clouds, everything." --Thich Nhat Hanh
"A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses." --Hippocrates
"The groundwork of all happiness is health." -- Leigh Hunt
"The oneness of mind and body holds the secret of illness and health. " --Arnold Hutschnecker
"Health is worth more than learning." --Thomas Jefferson
"We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique." -- Benjamin Jowett
"One out of 4 people in this country is mentally imbalanced. Think of your 3 closest friends-if they seem okay, then you're the one." --Ann Landers
"To insure good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life." -- William Londen
"It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding a sickness you like." --Jackie Mason
"Quit worrying about your health. It'll go away." --Robert Orben
"What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease." --George Dennison Prentice
"The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body. The more efficient your body, the better you feel and the more you will use your talent to produce outstanding results." -- Anthony Robbins
"Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live." -- Jim Rohn
"Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory." --Albert Schweitzer
"A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools." -- Spanish Proverb
"People who overly take care of their health are like misers. They hoard up a treasure which they never enjoy." -- Laurence Sterne
"Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and Spring. " --Henry David Thoreau
"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint." --Mark Twain
"The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease." --François Voltaire
"Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it." -- Unknown
"Time And health are two precious assets that we don't recognize and appreciate until they have been depleted." -- Denis Waitley
"Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God and value it next to conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of, a blessing money can't buy." --Izaak Walton

Occupational Health - Workplace Health Management

Workplace Health Management There are four key components of workplace health management:

Occupational Health and Safety
Workplace Health Promotion
Social and lifestyle determinants of health
Environmental Health Management

In the past occupational health policy was frequently driven solely by compliance with legislation. In the new approach to workplace health management, policy development is driven by both legislative requirements and by health targets set on a voluntary basis by the working community within each industry. In order to be effective Workplace Health Management needs to be based on knowledge, experience and practice accumulated in three disciplines: occupational health, workplace health promotion and environmental health. It is important to see workplace health management as a process not only for continuous improvement and health gain within the company, but also as framework for involvement between various agencies in the community. It offers a platform for co-operation between the local authorities and business leaders on community development through the improvement of public and environmental health.

The Healthy Workplace setting - a cornerstone of the Community Action Plan.

The Luxembourg Declaration of the European Union Network for Workplace Health Promotion defined WHP as the combined effort of employers, employees and society to improve the health and well-being of people at work

This can be achieved through a combination of:

Improving the work organization and the working environment
Promoting active participation of employees in health activities
Encouraging personal development

Workplace health promotion is seen in the EU network Luxembourg Declaration as a modern corporate strategy which aims at preventing ill-health at work and enhancing health promoting potential and well-being in the workforce. Documented benefits for workplace health programs include decreased absenteeism, reduced cardiovascular risk, reduced health care claims, decreased staff turnover, decreased musculoskeletal injuries, increased productivity, increased organizational effectiveness and the potential of a return on investment (Mossinik, Licher1998(Oxenburgh 1991).

However, many of these improvements require the sustained involvement of employees, employers and society in the activities required to make a difference. This is achieved through the empowerment of employees enabling them to make decisions about their own health. Occupational Health Nurses are well placed to carry out needs assessment for health promotion initiatives with the working populations they serve, to prioritize these initiatives alongside other occupational health and safety initiatives which may be underway, and to coordinate the activities at the enterprise level to ensure that initiatives which are planned are delivered. In the past occupational health services have been involved in the assessment of fitness to work and in assessing levels of disability for insurance purposes for many years.

The concept of maintaining working ability, in the otherwise healthy working population, has been developed by some innovative occupational health services. In some cases these efforts have been developed in response to the growing challenge caused by the aging workforce and the ever-increasing cost of social security. Occupational health nurses have often been at the forefront of these developments.

There is a need to develop further the focus of all occupational health services to include efforts to maintain work ability and to prevent non-occupational workplace preventable conditions by interventions at the workplace. This will require some occupational health services to become more pro-actively involved in workplace health promotion, without reducing the attention paid to preventing occupational accidents and diseases. Occupational health nurses, with their close contact with employees, sometimes over many years, are in a good position to plan, deliver and evaluate health promotion and maintenance of work ability interventions at the workplace.

Health promotion at work has grown in importance over the last decade as employers and employees recognize the respective benefits. Working people spend about half of their non-sleeping day at work and this provides an ideal opportunity for employees to share and receive various health messages and for employers to create healthy working environments. The scope of health promotion depends upon the needs of each group.

Some of the most common health promotion activities are smoking reducing activities, healthy nutrition or physical exercise programs, prevention and abatement of drug and alcohol abuse.

However, health promotion may also be directed towards other social, cultural and environmental health determinants, if the people within the company consider that these factors are important for the improvement of their health, well-being and quality of life. In this case factors such as improving work organization, motivation, reducing stress and burnout, introducing flexible working hours, personal development plans and career enhancement may also help to contribute to overall health and well-being of the working community.

The Healthy Community setting In addition to occupational health and workplace health promotion there is also another important aspect to Workplace Health Management. It is related to the impact that each company may have on the surrounding ambient environment, and through pollutants or products or services provided to others, its impact on distant environments. Remember how far the effects of the Chernobyl Nuclear accident in 1986 affected whole neighbouring countries.

Although the environmental health impact of companies is controlled by different legislation to that which applies to Health and Safety at work, there is a strong relationship between safeguarding the working environment, improving work organization and working culture within the company, and its approach to environmental health management.

Many leading companies already combine occupational health and safety with environmental health management to optimally use the available human resources within the company and to avoid duplication of effort. Occupational health nurses can make a contribution towards environmental health management, particularly in those companies that do not employ environmental health specialists.