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  • Reply to Letter to the Editor
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Response to “Is it possible to determine a ‘powerful marker of health’?”

International Journal of Obesity volume 32, page 1446 (2008)Cite this article

Dear Editor, we thank Palma and Axis for their interest in our paper.1 They have started an interesting conceptual discussion. The response to the points raised is basically the answer to three key questions: (1) what is health?, (2) what is fitness? and (3) how are these concepts related?

(1) Palma and Axis state ‘It is clear that the authors understand health as the absence of illnesses or normality’. We do not agree with this statement. We have a much broader concept of health, in accordance with the World Health Organization's definition: ‘health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease, or infirmity’. That is why our review includes concepts such as mental fitness (academic performance and so on), which is nothing to do with illness.

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References

  1. Ortega FB, Ruiz JR, Castillo MJ, Sjöström M . Physical fitness in childhood and adolescence: a powerful marker of health. Int J Obes (Lond) 2008; 32: 1–11.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    F B Ortega, M J Castillo & J R Ruiz

  2. Department of Biosciences and Nutrition at Novum, Unit for Preventive Nutrition, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden

    F B Ortega, J R Ruiz & M Sjöström

Authors
  1. F B Ortega
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  2. M J Castillo
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  3. J R Ruiz
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  4. M Sjöström
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Correspondence to F B Ortega.

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Ortega, F., Castillo, M., Ruiz, J. et al. Response to “Is it possible to determine a ‘powerful marker of health’?”. Int J Obes 32, 1446 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2008.132

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