Wellness and Vitality


At all stages of life, vitality means being the best you can be. That means not just the absence of illness, but wellness in the fullest sense—physical, mental, emotional wellness. And of all the many non-medical components or contributions to wellness, full nutrition is arguably the most important.

So how are we doing on nutritional wellness? Global public health statistics show that infectious diseases are becoming less of a problem, but worldwide, nearly 2 billion people are malnourished (for example, 70 percent of pregnant women in India are anemic). At the same time, there is a growing worldwide epidemic of obesity—that has already claimed a third of the US population. Public health officials see a rising tide of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease, for which obesity is a key risk factor. These phenomena are linked: new scientific evidence shows that malnourishment in pregnant women and young children creates a genetic tendency for obesity later in life.

There is also growing evidence that soils, agricultural produce, and many processed foods are depleted in the nutrients our bodies require. Isn’t likely that many people in poor and rich countries alike are not fully nourished, not able to function at their vital best? Might undetected shortages of key nutrients have something to do with the rise of allergies, autism, hyperactivity, even cancer? The answer is, we don’t know. Awareness of the world’s nutritional crisis is so low that very few people are even asking such questions.

Ashoka’s work over the last few years suggests that full nourishment is essential for wellness and vitality and that improving nutritional status is a critical strategy to combat malnourishment, physical and mental stunting of children, obesity, and even chronic and infectious disease. And that means improving the nutritional content of the food we eat, adopting farming techniques that sustain nutrient-rich soils, improving access to healthy fresh foods, ensuring that nutritional supplements are in the “bio-available” form that our bodies can readily absorb and use. We may well need new ways of measuring the micro-nutrient content of fresh produce, so consumers can know which tomato to buy, and of measuring full nourishment in people, so we can gauge what nutritional strategies work.

Of course, nutrition is only one component of wellness. Access to sanitation and safe drinking water—lacking for over a billion people—is another, because repeated bouts of water-borne disease reduce resistance to infection and kill millions of young children every year.  Fear of physical violence and lack of community solidarity deprive many of vitality and contribute to mental illness. Access to knowledge about health and wellness that empower individuals to take charge of their own wellness and vitality—whether internet sites in rich countries or village healthworkers armed with smart devices in poor rural communities—is important and increasingly possible. Integrating several such interventions at the same time would constitute a truly advanced wellness strategy.