Y M I Fat?

 
(still from the 2008 movie Wall-e, © Disney/Pixar... about culture and being fat and stuff...)

It occurrs to me, as I again endeavour to take off these last stubborn 20 pounds of excess adipose tissue, that the recent trend toward porkliness in our country is not the mystery one may be led to think.

Of course we are fatter than our parents' generation (my folks were born in the 1920s - 30s). I believe that one huge cause of our increased larditude is the fact that our population during the last 100 years steadily moved off the farm and into the suburbs. We were country folk. We are now city folk... sedentary, wan and pasty.

Our parents and grandparents did more physical work. Lots more. How many contemporary Euro-Americans do physically laborious work for a living... or even much at home? Do we not increasingly hire immigrant labor to do such jobs... even around the house?

I haven't been completely comfortable with the idea of exercise as a substitute for work, either... by exercise I mean the idea of climbing on a treadmill or other apparatus and merely putting our muscles through pointless repetitive motions in an attempt to stave off a coronary. I'm not saying exercise is bad or evil, and I'm not judging people who exercise (please, hold your outrage). What I am saying is that the modern idea of exercise seems to be another indicator of the fractured nature of our lives. Now, it seems, the condition and overall health of our bodies is divorced completely from our real life. We have to take special pains to arrange and schedule periods of "exercise"... that or eat like a rabbit, or resign ourselves to a life of blob-dome.

It just ain't... holistic, to use the New Age Hippy lingo. It is another instance of the current terrible lack of comprehensiveness in our human experiences. Sex is estranged from procreation, family is estranged form marriage, we multiply online friendships, but don't even know the names of our neighbors.

I heard this week that there is a (tiny) community of Catholics called "Plain Catholics" who lead lives similar to the Amish, from whom I think we could all learn a thing or two. I'm anxious to find out more about them. Not to turn back the clock, only to go back and see if there might be some important things we have left behind in our headlong rush to we-know-not-where. Culture is not an altogether blind process. It's something we make. All of us. There's no reason we can't make it a little more sane and balanced. Keep computers, heck yeah... and air conditioning and all that other wonderful technology... but use it to make more humane, full and joyful lives for ourselves. Technology must become our agent, and not our master.

Come to think of it, that's what Tolkien was driving at, eh?

Comments

[Foxfier]

Doing stuff is a LOT better than exercise for the sake of exercise.

I have to numb my brain with music or TV to do the mindless stuff; give me a task-- even if it's just bringing in the groceries!-- and I'll do it gladly.

[pcNielsen]

I've been of this mind for a while now. The book I just finished, The Bones of Plenty, often referenced to how full our days used to be with more common physical actions.

[Tim J.]

I'm pleased to report that I have been taking my own counsel... moving the woodpile yesterday, cleaning our numerous windows today.

And leaf raking weather is nearly upon us!

[Beadgirl]

Back when I could afford to go to a gym, all too often little things or big things would go wrong and I'd end up not getting any exercise for weeks at a time. Now that I am slowly transitioning to part-time work, my exercise is coming from walking to and from trains and up and down subway stairs. It is much more consistent, and I am actually losing a little wait. And I enjoy it. Well, mostly. Walking in the torrential rains last week with a pathetic little umbrella made me quite grumpy.

This is why, by the way, that city life (or at least, northeastern city life) is not causing people to be obese. People in cities with centralized mixed-usage downtowns and good public transportation systems walk quite a bit more than people who drive to and from their desk jobs and stores and whatnot.

I do miss dance classes and pilates. I don't know of any job that will allow me to do that.

[Tim J.]

It's true that a well-planned city will be better much than the suburbs, where you can't walk anywhere except past blocks and blocks of houses. I think I would like to live in a city where I could walk to work, or at least walk to the train, or something.

[Beadgirl]

I grew up in a rural area, so I have an appreciation and fondness for that, but I've been totally spoiled by living in walkable cities for the last 13 years, to the point that I am annoyed by my new neighborhood which has slightly fewer amenities than my old one. Suburbia, where you get neither the advantages of city life nor the advantages of rural life, is my idea of hell.

Over the summer I had to drive Beadboy1 to summer school every day, because busing would have taken to long. And I hated it. I'd much rather walk to a train and then sit and read a book. I've met people who prefer to commute by car, and I don't get them at all.

[Thomas Mallon]

Dr. Wiseman has something to say on the subject

http://stephen-hand2010.blogspot.com/2010/07/time-out-for-dr.html

[The Cobbler]

Hear, hear.