Health or fitness are sometimes thought to be same in meaning. Whereas to understand the perspective which decides our approach for our well being, they have different meaning.
Being fit means, being able to do something or few things up to required standard, like being fit for running, lifting weight and all. Yes, as verb, being fit means, being in good health by regular physical exercise, but as verb for being healthy
Being healthy means good physical or mental health, free from disease, overall general well being.
Now why do we need to differentiate between these two, while discussing yoga?
Because that brings us to main philosophy of yoga, which is complete well being of human body, both mind and body. A healthy mind is of little use when it is in unhealthy body, and vice versa. Of course there are exceptions to this situation, but then they are what it is, exceptions. And mostly it is due to sheer willpower of said individual about approach for life.
So a person might be all fit and quite capable of certain tasks, but if he is full of stress or tension, there is only so long his body will be able to perform in peak condition. It doesn’t take long for a healthy mind to start getting irritated if body is not healthy.
Health approach
There are only few of health related approach for life, which have holistic approach to include both physical and mental aspect. Yoga, Zen, Tai chi are few of them. It should be, that, whichever path you choose for health & well being, is based on principles of wisdom regarding life itself. Ironically, such paths, are quite simple and easy to follow. But then, maybe, that is the reason they are hard to follow. Human mind likes complexity and something that is as simple as yoga, requiring limited space to practice and no serious rules about diet or anything is taken as much effective. But reality is quite different. A simple search on google will tell you about recent researches into long term benefits of such approaches. The list is huge and they are here on subsequent pages of yogiwithcoffee.com , keep reading :)