And now after so many food words, it is time for a week of wellness and health.
Originally the word wellness was the opposite of illness. Wellness was simply the state of wellbeing. The first person to use it in English was a Scottish judge was wrote in his diary in 1654 that he gave praise to God for his “daughter’s wellness”. It was obviously a fashionable word at the time, because just one year later an English letter writer was complaining that she did not know the new phrases. She asked “what is meant by wellness and unwellness?”
Fast forward to a completely new idea of wellness. Dr Halbert Dunn was a key figure in establishing a recording system for births, deaths, marriages and divorces in the United States. But today we acknowledge his direct contribution to the English language. His lectures and written work on the subject of High Level Wellness in the 1960s gave a new meaning to an old English word, and in time it spawned a lucrative industry.
“Wellness” is based on the principle that prevention is better than cure. While Dr Dunn’s work focused on preventative health care treatment, wellness would become a positive catchword for almost anything health or nutrition related. We don’t have to look far to find wellness drinks, organic foods or designated wellness areas in hotels. And by introducing Annual Wellness Visits to prevent ill health, the US Government’s Medicare programme is following the principles that Dr Dunn outlined half a century ago.
