Check out these meaning of health images:
Health Card
Image by Ikhlasul Amal
"Kartu Menuju Sehat", literally means "Road to Health Card", for mothers and kids.
Part of public health program for mothers and kids.
Health Minister with Brian Magee - MY Fitness
Image by DUP Photos
Health Minister Edwin Poots with boxer Brian Magee promoting mens health at Belfast City Hall
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The greatest risk to men’s health is their reluctance to seek help at times of difficulty.
This hard-hitting statement was made by Health Minister Edwin Poots as he opened a men’s health event in Belfast City Hall aimed to heighten the awareness of preventable health problems and encourage early detection and treatment of disease among men and boys.
The event is part of the efforts to highlight Men’s Health Week.
The Minister said: “The improvement of men’s health-related behaviours is a vitally important challenge for our society.
“All too often, there is a reluctance to seek help at times of difficulty or to take part in health improvement programmes that are arranged by GPs and other healthcare professionals.
“It is vital that this is addressed, as many illnesses and conditions such as bowel, prostate and testicular cancer can be treated successfully if diagnosed at an early stage.”
The Minister also went on to emphasise the importance of having a healthy lifestyle in helping to maintain good health. He said: “Behaviours such as smoking, drinking to excess, having unhealthy eating habits and a lack of physical activity are hugely influential in causing disease.
“Too many men rely on other people in their lives to make health care arrangements for them.
“Men have to take more responsibility for their own health. They need to decide to make healthier choices and we need to provide the means to support them in their efforts.”
The men’s health event at City Hall has been organised by the Belfast Trust and various community and voluntary organisations. It provides an opportunity for men of all ages to drop in and avail of various health checks, including cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure and health MOT checks.
The greatest risk to men’s health is their reluctance to seek help at times of difficulty.
This hard-hitting statement was made by Health Minister Edwin Poots as he opened a men’s health event in Belfast City Hall aimed to heighten the awareness of preventable health problems and encourage early detection and treatment of disease among men and boys.
The event is part of the efforts to highlight Men’s Health Week.
The Minister said: “The improvement of men’s health-related behaviours is a vitally important challenge for our society.
“All too often, there is a reluctance to seek help at times of difficulty or to take part in health improvement programmes that are arranged by GPs and other healthcare professionals.
“It is vital that this is addressed, as many illnesses and conditions such as bowel, prostate and testicular cancer can be treated successfully if diagnosed at an early stage.”
The Minister also went on to emphasise the importance of having a healthy lifestyle in helping to maintain good health. He said: “Behaviours such as smoking, drinking to excess, having unhealthy eating habits and a lack of physical activity are hugely influential in causing disease.
“Too many men rely on other people in their lives to make health care arrangements for them.
“Men have to take more responsibility for their own health. They need to decide to make healthier choices and we need to provide the means to support them in their efforts.”
The men’s health event at City Hall has been organised by the Belfast Trust and various community and voluntary organisations. It provides an opportunity for men of all ages to drop in and avail of various health checks, including cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure and health MOT checks.
Health Potions
Image by timtak
At a store selling heath potions, the salesman does a samurai pose (the bottles are meant to be the samurai's hairstlye) for the camera.
The Japanese are very keen on these medicines. They are advertised extensively on television and stocked at all chemists and many convenience stores. They contain various minerals and vitamins, extracts such as "royal jelly," and importantly caffiene and nicotine in fairly large quantities. Their effect is largely thus comparable to having two cups of esspresso coffee and a cigar. The adverts suggest that drinking these potions makes you "genki hatsu ratsu" (particularly fit in mind and body), keep fighting for one more try, or take off in a personal rocket backpack.
The reason for the Japanese belief in such medicines is probably related to the following:
1) The tradition of imbibing east asian medicines (Kanpou Yaku) which makes extensive use of various plant and animal extracts and minerals. This tradition continues not only in the health potions featured above but also a general tendency to believe that alcohol, black vinegar, green tea, "green juice" (ao-jiru) vegetable extract, and extracts of certain types of mushrooms have medicinial properties.
2) The Japanese salaried employee is often so busy that he or she has need of drugs such as this to get him (or her) through the day. When I working in a Japanese company employees would bring a case of health potion to the office for everyone to drink.
3) Japan has a culture of linguistic humility where it is considered in bad taste to tell people how much work one is doing. One has to be oblique. But visual signs of endeavour are acceptable, so drinking a health potion at ones desk is a way of telling colleagues that one is trying very hard. Visual expression of "genkiness" and positivity in general are quite acceptable, as can be seen from the photograph above.
4) For Japanese men, machismo is bound up with extent to which they can work hard and long hours. As well as actually facilitating this feat, some health potions excentuate the machismo of the act by having blatantly phallic symbols on the bottle. (Perhaps the samurai hairstyle as being mimiced by the gentleman in his photograph is phallic, as noted elsewhere, the traditional headware of shinto priests, the bird hard, is said to be phallic.)
5) As found in Catholic cultures where believers eat the body of God on Sunday, the Japanese have a tradition of consuming food - particularly rice cakes - which is believe to be imbued with the spirit of their deity. The rice cakes consumed at New Year are traditionally believe to have this spiritually envigorating function. (It is also notable that members of Catholic cultures in Europe also seem to be fond of potions too. The French are fond of medicinial teas and the consumption of esspresso cofee in both France and Italy seems to have a ritual quality).
