It is not only with all these questions that one comes to confront during one’s lifetime. But in order to be able to ask the right questions at all, it is important to realise that we need to have a certain level of knowledge about the functioning of our own body.
If we look objectively, nothing is happening to advance sex education or to expand health education in Slovakia. And this is a common problem we encounter in everyday practice. People don’t know how their own body works, how the different organ systems work and how they are interconnected. Of course, we do not expect expertise in the anatomy and pathology of the organism, but often these are deficiencies at an elementary level.
What is health anyway? Health is defined by the WHO as: “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. Already with this definition we can notice that it is the interconnection of all aspects of the body’s functioning with regard to health. In today’s 21. century, we increasingly need to realise that a holistic, that is, a holistic view of health must be a given, and that each individual has health in his or her own hands. It is only then that we can see prevention in the area of our own health as a benefit to ourselves.
Prevention, i.e. the avoidance of disease, is divided into:
- Primary, i.e. a set of activities to reduce exposure to risk or reduce the incidence of new diseases (e.g. vaccination, health education, self-examination, …),
- secondary, a set of activities that serve to catch the disease and prevent its further spread (collection of biological material, various types of testing methods, …)
- tertiary, it is already a set of activities aimed at preventing complications and worsening of the disease.
- genital and breast self-examinations, this is the fastest and most effective way to find out the level of our intimate health (breast and testicular examinations can be done regularly in the natural environment of the home without unnecessary stress),
- Genital and breast examinations by a doctor, regular preventive gynaecological, urological and venereological check-ups play an important role in the prevention of cancer, sexually transmitted diseases and we must not underestimate their importance,
- HPV vaccination (HPV virus – causes an increased likelihood of developing various types of cancer),
- the use of condoms, also as a tool to protect your own health.
So let us always remember that we have the responsibility for our health in our own hands and let us link our sex life and prevention in it as one of our priorities. After all, even Maslow, in his pyramid of needs, included sex life among our basic needs, so let us also include prevention among our basic priorities.
