ABSTRACT

There is overwhelming evidence to suggest that all types of abuse and neglect will potentially have a long-term negative impact on a child's physical, intellectual and emotional wellbeing. The requirement for a child to 'be healthy' was also enshrined as one of the five Every Child Matters outcomes (DfES, 2004), and is currently integral to the implementation of the Healthy Child Programme. This chapter considers what being healthy is, exploring where responsibility lies in relation to children being supported to be healthy. The World Health Organization's (1948) definition of health as 'a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity' is often used to describe what health is. The introduction of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948 gave British citizens the right to health care that was free at the point of delivery. It is now generally agreed that health is a multidimensional phenomenon and has many contributing determinants.