I realised those around me lead a sedentary life when...

[Wowbagger]

I found it useful - and it has gone some way to bumping me out of my apathy - so I thank you for starting it. As they say, you can’t change other people’s behaviour, but you can alter your reaction to it. (That is a note to self, rather than implied criticism of anyone else).

[Polar Bear]

I for one hope that the thread is not deleted.  People gain knowledge and perspective from controversial subjects.

Sedentary lifestyles are not always by choice as we know and are as such for many many differing reasons.  It's surely better that we are exposed to circumstances outside of our personal frame of reference and have the opportunity to gain greater understanding and empathy for such circumstances.

The YACF massive is not the Daily Mail ...

And what Wow said.  👍

[fruitcake]

I think we've lived within a culture since (at least) the 1980s that has induced guilt among those who don't have a certain body shape: guilt has been weaponised; it's been weaponised by those who want to sell stuff (e.g. by the fitness industry, the slimming clubs, the food manufacturers).

Different people have a differing propensity for physical activity (or 'appetite for activity'), which is not the same as body shape, but I guess it's difficult to discuss the former without it being received as the latter (thanks to years of misinformation from the 'health' industries).

And so, I should say that I'm not interested in telling other people how to live their lives. I never have been interested in doing that. It didn't occur to me that this thread might be read that way. Nor am I interested in making people feel guilty. My posts here are intended to explore those moments when I realised that I had an active lifestyle - a more active lifestyle than those around me - and that perhaps I hadn't realise how others' lifestyles differed from mine.

[barakta]

I don't want the thread deleted either.

And yes, when I was more ambulant, some of my colleagues were shocked I walked a whole kilometer to and from work each day, cos they never walked further than across a carpark.

Some of them women who had "fear of the bogieman" type issues (altho never offered me a lift in the dark until I pointed that out, and one started offering me a lift the parts of our route that matched which I accepted sometimes when leg was bad).

I was lucky my immediate team all walked further than I did to work or cycled cos they wanted not to be driving and stuck in traffic and dealing with parking stress. It is notable some of them did other exercise (the younger ones didn't but may have hit 40 and reassessed)....

[Kim]

Some of them women who had "fear of the bogieman" type issues

I think that's a real factor for many women, who've been conditioned to expect rapists around every corner once the ambient light level drops below about 100Lux, this is then reinforced by never going anywhere without either a man or a car.

More realistically, it's basically impossible to be a young and/or fat woman doing exercise in public without attracting comment from the various flavours of shouty man.  That's merely demoralising on a bike, where you have speed as an escape option, I can't imagine it makes running much fun.

[hubner]

Isn't it "natural" for people to be sedentary when there's little need for physical effort in their daily lives, and that they will tend to be overweight if they can eat unlimited amounts of food?

[Regulator]

My personal trainer (in his early 20s) doesn't do walking.  He thinks I'm bonkers doing a Camino... in fact he thought I was slightly mad to be doing a 5k fun run/walk on a non-training day.

I didn't tell him about the 10 mile walk in the afternoon.

[teamerchant]

I get frustrated with the refusal for most sections of society to engage with a healthier lifestyle, and yet an unhesitating acceptance of chemical solutions (Wegovy). We seem to be happy to spend billions on the NHS for treating obesity and comorbidities arising from a sedentary lifestyle, and yet refuse to spend anywhere near as much on designing a society that has health built in.

I have got increasingly less smug as I have gotten older, aided my my father (endurance athlete, ran for his country, vegetarian for 40 years) dropping dead at 67, and my partner putting on significant weight after a bereavement - he's also not as bothered about the implications. Whereas in my job (oncology) - I see people dealing with lifestyle related cancers and completely unfit for lifesaving treatments because they haven't looked after themselves - and sometimes because they've just been very, very unlucky.

Society's perception has shifted - my mother in law cycled daily to 6th from college (about 10 miles each way), as did other older residents of my village and no one batted an eyelid. When I cycle a shorter distance to work on my eBike, with modern waterproofs and free hot showers at work, I'm viewed as not right in the head; clearly it's a level of danger akin to scaling K2 unassisted, unlike a sedentary lifestyle...

Good luck to those with their struggles.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I think that is a reflection in one particular area of our general attitude to everything. We'd rather donate to a homeless shelter than have a society in which everyone has a home, we'd rather build a few cycle paths and pavements than roads usable by all, we'd rather bail out banks than rein in their excesses; in short, we'd rather deal with a distant but horrible prospect than take lesser action now.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Or to put it more simply, Wegovy is treating a symptom – obesity – without addressing the underlying issues of overeating, underactivity, etc. And only one of the symptoms at that.

[teamerchant]

Exactly - because people find it far easier to have one injection once a week, rather than make meaningful changes which require effort.

[Regulator]

I get frustrated with the refusal for most sections of society to engage with a healthier lifestyle, and yet an unhesitating acceptance of chemical solutions (Wegovy). We seem to be happy to spend billions on the NHS for treating obesity and comorbidities arising from a sedentary lifestyle, and yet refuse to spend anywhere near as much on designing a society that has health built in.

I have got increasingly less smug as I have gotten older, aided my my father (endurance athlete, ran for his country, vegetarian for 40 years) dropping dead at 67, and my partner putting on significant weight after a bereavement - he's also not as bothered about the implications. Whereas in my job (oncology) - I see people dealing with lifestyle related cancers and completely unfit for lifesaving treatments because they haven't looked after themselves - and sometimes because they've just been very, very unlucky.

Society's perception has shifted - my mother in law cycled daily to 6th from college (about 10 miles each way), as did other older residents of my village and no one batted an eyelid. When I cycle a shorter distance to work on my eBike, with modern waterproofs and free hot showers at work, I'm viewed as not right in the head; clearly it's a level of danger akin to scaling K2 unassisted, unlike a sedentary lifestyle...

Good luck to those with their struggles.

It's not quite as simple as that.

We have changed the way that we work and live.  The majority of us no longer have manual jobs - instead we are sitting for hours in front of computers,  We often travel long distances just to sit in front of a computer.  Our working hours have increased whilst our leisure hours have decreased.  At the same time, we've been moved away from fresh, seasonal produce to more processed foods.  This in particular has a disproportionate impact on those in the lowest socioeconomic groups (fresh, high quality food is more expensive to buy and store than hyper-processed crap).  We have structured our towns and transport infrastructure to discourage active lifestyles.

If we are to address high levels of obesity, then we need more than simply telling individuals they need to do better.  We need fundamental reforms to the way our society operate, the way/hours we work, how our housing and transport are structured, and how our food supplies work.  These are also in part the sorts of changes that need to be made to address the existential threat we face through climate change... so it could be a win-win.

[teamerchant]

Regulator- that's somewhat my point. Whenever some tries to improve the status quo, society seems to actively work against it. Look at what happened when Jamie Oliver tried to improve school dinners; parents resorted to shoving takeaways through the school bars. You see it here in Cambridge as well, which I would consider to be of above average intelligence. When a sustainable travel zone was mooted, it was shot down in flames, despite it being the best solution to congestion that we have available.

It's those fundamental reforms that are increasingly hard to push through.

[telstarbox]

People still have choices though. I could drive to work everyday as it's an easy half an hour with free parking, but I generally cycle it one day a week instead. That's good for me and the planet.

[Adam]

People still have choices though. I could drive to work everyday as it's an easy half an hour with free parking, but I generally cycle it one day a week instead. That's good for me and the planet.

Sadly though, a large proportion of the population are increasingly selfish.  The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.

[ian]

If people are unwilling to take any responsibility for themselves, they're unlikely to vote for governments that might make them.

Sadly, no prospective government will win votes with a mandatory daily salad and exercise hour. Eating cake is fun, lounging on the sofa is nice, driving everywhere is easy.

Of course, if you look around, you see the increasingly grim outcome even in the UK. In the US now, slim people actually stand out. It's only a matter of time before we have a 'slim acceptance' movement.

[cygnet]

People still have choices though. I could drive to work everyday as it's an easy half an hour with free parking, but I generally cycle it one day a week instead. That's good for me and the planet.

Sadly though, a large proportion of the population are increasingly selfish.  The needs wants of the one outweigh the needs of the many.

My edit.

[Regulator]

People still have choices though. I could drive to work everyday as it's an easy half an hour with free parking, but I generally cycle it one day a week instead. That's good for me and the planet.

Not everybody has that option, particularly when the have young children.

[davelodwig]

People still have choices though. I could drive to work everyday as it's an easy half an hour with free parking, but I generally cycle it one day a week instead. That's good for me and the planet.

Not everybody has that option, particularly when the have young children.

I have a young child, and we manage to do the nursery drop off on the other side of town and commuting by bike.

There are people who drive the 500m to the local school then drive home, it's always a choice.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Of course, if you look around, you see the increasingly grim outcome even in the UK. In the US now, slim people actually stand out. It's only a matter of time before we have a 'slim acceptance' movement.

This is the danger of the "body positive" movement. If it actually meant finding something positive in each person's body, whatever its size, age, shape, abilities and so on, that would be great. We ought to have such a movement. But in practice it's only applied to fat people and means "obesity positive". Perhaps in future it will be reclaimed, like eg gay and queer, and we'll see ultraskinny people, physically disabled people, and others using it.

[Andy W]

Manual work keeps us slim, NOT. Visit a builders merchants and youll find plenty of fat builders.
Im a slim bricklayer, my job obviously demands a higher calorie intake than a keyboard warrior but its the food i consume rather than my employment that shapes my shape.  This evening i had a baked potato, half a tin of beans and  some tomatoes. Cost £1 or less. Fresh vegetables are relatively cheap compared to highly processed food.
A colleague of my wife drives 600 metres to work, shes morbidly obese and complains about thr NHS , waiting times for knee replacements. My sons have sedentary jobs, frequently work twelve hour shifts, theyre slim, could it be the fact that they usually run 6 miles to work and take a packed lunch as buying highly processed food is too expensive.
Lifestyle choices make us fat, what we eat, whether we exercise or not, always blaming others(politicians) or any one of a bumper fun book of excuses why people are fat and unhealthy.
Its a shame this thread has become somewhat politicised, still its par for the course.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

People still have choices though. I could drive to work everyday as it's an easy half an hour with free parking, but I generally cycle it one day a week instead. That's good for me and the planet.

Not everybody has that option, particularly when the have young children.

See quite a few bikes fitted with child carriers of many varieties in York.  E-bikes also make it easier.

The deterrent is of course, selfish driving.

[fruitcake]

My personal trainer (in his early 20s) doesn't do walking.  He thinks I'm bonkers doing a Camino... in fact he thought I was slightly mad to be doing a 5k fun run/walk on a non-training day... I didn't tell him about the 10 mile walk in the afternoon.

So does he drive everywhere?

I didn't tell him about the 10 mile walk in the afternoon.

It's decades since I've attempted anything like that. How long does a 10 mile walk take?

[ian]

About 3.5 hours. Unless you stop in the pub midway.

[Lightning Phil]

10 miles walking would be about 2.5 hours to 3.5 hours if relatively flat and paved. All bets off in technical mountain terrain, or at altitude.