Health = Your body and mind operating smoothly.

There, we’re done.  Hope you enjoyed the post.

What? Do I hear grumbling from the masses?  Do I hear the stirrings of an “Occupy the Blog-o-sphere Movement?

Ok, ok, since you insist, I’ll elaborate; you guys should know by now that it doesn’t take much to get me to expand on any topic.  LOL @ myself.  🙂

Let’s “Google” it!

So, what does “health” mean?  I did a Google search for health and got this:

Over a billion hits.  That is “Billion” with a “B!”  — Aha! A chance to use my Librarian skills!  Woo Hoo!

Take note: When doing a keyword search, adding more words in the search box, or the addition of suffixes, means fewer hits.  So, let’s add a “y” and do a search for healthy:

Better.  Only 824 Million.  Hmmm, let’s go at it from the other end of the spectrum, add a prefix, and look for unhealthy:

Still better; getting closer: only 42 Million possible websites to read.  Weeeee!  Having fun yet?  Hey, this is how my whole work day goes sometimes, tracking down elusive bits of information.  😉  For the record, I didn’t intend this blog entry to be a lesson on “how to do a web search” but since we’ve started, then, hey, why not?

TIP:  When looking for a “definitive” anything on the net, you can use Google’s Advanced Search and limit by the top level domains  or in other words, by the type of website such .org, .gov, or .edu.  Before I ahem uhmmm…  “retired from being a librarian”, I used this trick quite a bit almost every day at work to help people find information.  It is something that I use for myself almost every time I look for reliable information on the net.

.gov Domains

Websites with the .gov top-level domain are generally departments of the United States Federal Government.  Don’t laugh!  And no rolling of the eyes either!   This is your tax dollars at work!  All kidding aside, there is a LOT of very good data and information on those websites!  The information on .gov websites is non-partisan (except for the pages belonging to an individual senator or representative ) and very reliable!  Any research grant issued by the US Government requires the recipient to file a final report of its activities and findings; these reports are published and made available to the American people.  Some examples of government websites related to health: MedlinePlus (the first stop for any search for health information), the United States Department of Health and Human Services or United States Food and Drug Administration Home Page and Health.gov — Your Portal to Health Information from the U.S. Government (an umbrella website that access multiple departmental websites simultaneously.

.org Domains

Websites with the .org top-level domain generally include non-profits, some good, some bad, some reliable, and some with a drum to beat, an agenda, in other words.  So don’t turn your brain off and blindly accept what they say at face value just because they are “not for profit.”  Examples of some of the good ones related to health are  The President’s Challenge, the Mayo Clinic, and WHO — the World Health Organization.

.edu Domains

Websites with the .edu top-level domain are generally universities and colleges.  The “edu” is short for “educational.”  A word of caution: there are some sleazy “for profit trade schools” (the kind that advertize on local TV at 3 in the morning) and there are local school districts which also use the .org domain extension. So, don’t turn your brain off and accept what these institutions say at face value just because they are “educational.”  College and university websites work best when you are looking for a very specific topic.  There are a lot of subject specialist librarians at college libraries and professors with special expertise who publish valuable information online, mainly intended for their own students but accessible to all thanks to Google.  Example:  a search for “hydrostatic weighing” limited to .edu websites will lead you to lots of valuable information like  Methods of Body Composition Analysis — Tutorials found at the University of Vermont, Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences.

Health is…

When you do a web search, and do a little reading, you’ll find lots of descriptions and definitions and answers to “What is health?”   But, let’s keep it simple (and quicker) and use another one of the tools from my former workplace, a dictionary:

From the Merriam Webster Website: (http://www.merriam-webster.com)

Which pretty much brings us right back to where I started up at the top of this post.

Health = Your body and mind operating smoothly.

See ya on the dance floor!

Related Links / Articles

• MedlinePlus (www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus)
• United States Department of Health and Human Services (www.hhs.gov)
• United States Food and Drug Administration Home Page (www.fda.gov)
• Health.gov — Your Portal to Health Information from the U.S. Government (health.gov)
• The President’s Challenge (www.presidentschallenge.org)
• Mayo Clinic (www.mayohealth.org)
• WHO — the World Health Organization (www.who.int/en)
• Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (www.merriam-webster.com)
• Methods of Body Composition Analysis — Tutorials  (nutrition.uvm.edu) [The University of Vermont, Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences]
• Getting Started with Google “InsideSearch”  (www.google.com)
• Google Search Features (www.google.com)