I can’t pretend to be an expert on health care. In fact, it’s something I usually avoid talking about given my minimal knowledge on health care policies, insurance providers, medicinal practices and medicine itself.

As far as I know, I stay on my parents’ health insurance plan until the age of 26, but the stress caused by trying to figure out my health insurance is not covered by it.

I suppose I shouldn’t feel so bad, when our own president admitted shortly after taking office that “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.”

To begin my venture with health care, I chose to take a large step back and look at the big picture. My approach to health care is similar to education, in that I think the problem cannot always be fixed with more money. Firstly, why are we spending so much with so little results?

According to a 2011 report from The Organization for Economic Development, the United States spends two-and-a-half times more than the OECD average health expenditure per person. We far outspend the countries that come close; we spend 3,000 more per person per year than Switzerland, the closest country in terms of health care spending.

With the egregious amounts of spending, I would expect our country to far outrank our neighbors in terms of health and wellness.

Wrong again.

America’s Health Rankings has released an annual federal and state-by-state report for the past 27 years.

The 2016 report showed that compared to 1990, obesity is 157 percent more prevalent among adults. We rank first in obesity among OECD countries and 19th overall in the world.

In the past five years, drug deaths increased 9 percent from 12.9 deaths to 14 deaths per 100,000 population. 

2016 was the first year cardiovascular deaths increased in the 27 years this report has been released. The number went from 250.8 in 2015 to 251.7 deaths per 100,000 population.

To take it a little closer to home, North Carolina was ranked 32 out of 50 states for overall health. Among the worst states were Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas, while Hawaii holds the title of the healthiest state.

While there are a number of compounding reasons for the data presented, I cannot help but think that from a big-picture approach, we are thinking about health and wellness in the wrong way.

Wellness is more than your next doctor’s visit.

The World Health Organization definition of health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

NC State has made strides in providing a community that supports much more than treatment in their students’ overall wellness and health.

Seriously, as the end of the semester draws near, treat yourself to a massage, seek out the nutritional advice you’ve always wanted from a registered dietitian, have a conversation with someone from the Counseling Center about your mental health and take advantage of the wealth of knowledge the Women’s Health clinic has to offer (that, let’s face it, you never got in middle school). 

While I may not have the answers to the underlying issues in our country’s health care, I’m starting to understand the definition of health a little better.

And I think just maybe, the two are one and the same.