ok, maybe to you health and fitness are the same.. if so we can't really discuss.
For me they are not. Its like apples and oranges...

Its all depends on what ones beliefs and what paradigm one is in...

Other wise whats said just doesn't make sense.

Like maybe I don't make sense to you and your example of 'health' doesn't even compute to me...

See I believe that disease processes take 15-20 years to develop. Others seem to believe that one day BANG you get cancer, IBS, chronic fatigue, MS etc etc etc And the body is weak, deffective and we need drugs and the savoirs in white coats to give us pills and get us by till we fizzle off (while taking more and more drugs) till we hiccup and DIE!!! (scary word!!! better take your pills)

If you see the dis-ease process developin over and we know that we aren't aware of this happening concisouly then we have to wonder (if the statement is true) why it develops.

So a picture of a fit person tells me nothing about what I really think health is.

You may disagree with that belief in health but does that make sense??

Lets say for example that an athlete over trains... the building blocks to make stress hormone cortisol (for example) also are used to make building blocks for growth and repair hormones, sex hormones too (how many athletes sec drive goes doen with training??? -a sign they are catabolic, over training, and LOOSING strength!). But the body is amazing, it will keep pumping out the hormones required for the stress situation (fight or flight response takes priority over everything else!!! Digestion goes down, elimination is effected, hormones are altered etc etc etc etc. But for along time we can still perform (well maybe not in the bed room-you don't need hormones to reproduce when you are in a fight or flight response).

So the athlete can keep training. Infact early stages of adrenal fatigue.... Make you feel GREAT!!!! Energy might be up (got to fight or run for life, pain sensation is down (don't need to feel that arrow in you).

Yet the athlete looks good and performs well (though I believe they can perform better even, no matter how good they do, if not over training.

cortisol, is get up and go baby, its feel good, pain down, on the ball, rock and roll... so everyone thinks its good. But its all about balance or in time (ahhh time hmmmm) things start to not work so well, fall apart.

Cortisol and the immune system have some cool conections as well... Doesn't the immune system deffend us ALL from cancer (for example)? hmmmm So disrupted, repressed etc immune function for years on end from cortisol over load hmmmmmmm

Still performing though.... is that health?? What is health??

But maybe its just genetic and wo is me, poor me, thank God for pills and radiation to make my life better..

Its all a belief system.

So if health to you is performance...then more can be healthy on a vegan diet than I previously gave my opinion on.

(an explination of stress response from "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" that I like.. you're building a roof on your new house. A hurricane is headed straight at you, do you keep building??? Basically the body is the same. Stress response (fight or flight) means all repair, including fighting cancer, recovery, growth etc etc etc is shut down untill the threat is passed....the problem is when the threat is ever present....

Balance