THE GENESIS AND EVOLUTION OF THE WELLNESS CONCEPT IN SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE

Abstract

The study is devoted to the genesis of the concept of “wellness”, the transformation of its meaning throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries, and the origins of conceptual and terminological heterogeneity. The subject of the study is the evolution of the concept of wellness as a scientific and sociocultural idea formed within the framework of interdisciplinary discourse on health, well-being, and quality of life. The purpose of the article is to analyse the formation of the concept of wellness, to identify and characterise the key stages of its evolution. The research methodology is based on a conceptual review of classical and contemporary scientific sources using methods of theoretical analysis, comparison and generalisation of definitions and models, as well as a historical and logical approach to tracing the sequence of transformations of the concept. The selection of sources was carried out according to the criteria of thematic relevance and conceptual integrity, with an emphasis on multidimensional interpretations of wellness. The study found that the concept of wellness emerged as a result of a gradual shift from a biomedical interpretation of health to a procedural and multidimensional view of human functioning. The variable nature of the structure of wellness and its dependence on the sociocultural context were identified. A generalised periodisation of the evolution of the concept of wellness is proposed, which reflects the logic of its expansion and explains the lack of a single theoretical consensus. The practical significance of the results obtained lies in the possibility of their use in the formation and interpretation of proposals in the field of wellness tourism and in the educational process. It is concluded that the modern concept of wellness functions as an open analytical framework, the multidimensionality and contextual sensitivity of which is the result of the historical layering of theoretical approaches. The proposed periodisation allows us to interpret the conceptual variability of wellness not as theoretical inconsistency, but as a manifestation of the concept's adaptability to various research and applied tasks.