A medical check is a very good positive and preventive step that any individual can take to defend him against disease and disability. However, a medical check merely identifies existing ailments. It does not warn of risk of future ailments or provide holistic advice on ways to reduce existing ailments. While the medical check is a good defensive step, it is incomplete without lifestyle assessment and lifestyle modification.

By now, it is well established that absence of illness can be identified through a medical check up. But absence of illness does not automatically indicate presence of health. There is a wide gap between Wellness and Illness and the WHO identified this as early as 1956 by saying that, "Health is not merely the absence of disease but a state of optimum physical, mental, social and spiritual wellbeing".