A little bit of History

On the subject "Quality of Life" there are bibliographical references around 1975. From the eighties the boom of expanding the concept increases, starting this one of the interest of medicine, creating the bond of quality of life based on the health of the individual , later the sociology and the psychology will include to this concept the terms like happiness and well-being. How does the concept originate? Born with the human need to understand how human welfare or happiness is built in modern times, it will be approached in a multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary way, not simply by looking at the health aspects, but also the impact that the political, economic, and biological processes construct. , ecological, medical, psychological, disciplines that work on the process of learning consciousness as somatic education, as well as other professionals who contribute their approaches, and how we can work together looking for a common goal that individuals and societies let's understand this topic. There are two main facts that in recent years have been developing, one is that through the experience we have experienced as humanity we have not made aware of the impact that the actions of our ancestors have had depending on our environment, thus developing what is called collective consciousness, acquiring the common responsibility of the need for change in certain practices that allow recovering or at least diminishing the erosion process that is generated in the environment through new ecological practices, which it allows us to have a sense in relation to our planet and the society in which we live.

On the other hand, every day that we live we can see how the qualitative aspect of life can be affected by the quantitative aspect, which society has tended to form from the economic process, so that a series of gears are created that impact on the quality of living, the previous thing is producing the accelerated aging, the increase of the human pain, the fatigue, the limitations, misery and aggressiveness that invade peoples and people.

Observing the Greek, Hebrew, Egyptian and Roman civilizations we can find the creation of the Western tradition of concern for the health of the subject, attending to several factors such as personal hygiene and food, as in Greece, while the Romans did a sanitary engineering of conduction and elimination of waters. Health was considered mainly as the existence of a public and collective space in which social life could develop without great risks. it is then that measures against certain epidemics are generated, for example leprosy.

But if we go to the eighteenth century, we can find in these civilizations their attention to the aspect of private and public health of this time. Subsequently, the concept of state appears and the establishment of a series of laws guaranteeing the rights and social welfare of the citizen, with which the "welfare state" arises (1)

In the nineteenth century human rights and the rights of citizens in the states were recognized, producing a new way of life quality, consisting of the recognition of activity and individual action, of political struggle and freedom of association and meeting, of the freedom of belief, of opinions and of free expression, thus constructing the social and political frontier in this subject.

The error that is beginning to be generated is to link the quality of life to the pure process of economic development, forgetting the most qualitative aspects of this aspect (2). In other words, an opulent and consumer society can determine a quality of life, nor can material and economic wellbeing coincide with subjective well-being, satisfaction with life and the feeling of happiness.

1.-Harris, D (1990). La justificación del estado de bienestar. Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Fiscales.

2.-Blanco, Abarca, A ( 1985). La calidad de vida, supuestos psicosociales. En J:F: Morales y cols, Psicología Social aplicada, DDB, 1985.