Why are the general population resistant to getting fit?

[Jon in Sweden]

It's always been something that's puzzled me that so many people live with very poor levels of fitness and strength and seem to regard any small amount of exercise as being beyond them.

I work as a machine operator in a large sawmill. I cycle 27.5km each way each day. I don't always cycle, but I usually do. I also strength train quite a bit, because I've been a beanpole of a cyclist as a kid, and I don't want to be that again. Functional strength is very important for longevity.

I was chatting to a colleague last week about cycling and it turns out she lives 5km from work but always drives. It's the last 5km of my commute. I asked her whether she'd considered cycling but she laughed and said she'd get completely out of breath on the hill on the way. The route is almost flat and the aforementioned hill is 12m high and 9% at worst (on one side, the other side tops out at 7%).

She's only a touch older than me, not significantly overweight and in good health. For me, had I identified that an activity such as that got me badly out of breath, I would have sought to do something about it. And being out of breath is, in and of itself, not a bad thing.

Many of my other colleagues are in very poor shape too. It's a fairly physically demanding job at times, and I wonder if that plays into it? You come home physically tired from work, don't have the energy to exercise. But because you don't exercise, work is physically tiring. It's a vicious cycle.

Here in Sweden, there is a tax provision for spending on health and fitness (about £250 a year, I think) but I don't know exactly how it works. I've subtly suggested that perhaps the sawmill could offer some sort of fitness programme, perhaps install an on site gym/sauna, something.

But it's very hard not to come across as the weird, fitness obsessed Brit trying to push an agenda. But equally, it's difficult to see people in obviously poor health and nothing being done about it. I remember getting onto a bike for the first time in 15 years during lockdown (as someone was in reasonable shape at the time) and finding 8km along a canal towpath with a toddler onboard fairly challenging. I now cycle 250-300km a week without issue, and only started again April 2022. It's very possible to enact large change in quite a short period of time.

Has anyone else had any success in encouraging people around them to adopt a slightly healthier lifestyle?

[tim-b]

Have a hunt through the work of Prof Marie H Murphy, Ulster University Sport and Exercise Sciences Research Institute
Here's an example:
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... dolescents

[Pendodave]

Has anyone else had any success in encouraging people around them to adopt a slightly healthier lifestyle?

Kind of, but probably not quite an answer to the question.
I have 3 kids, currently 21 through 27. They've always been supported to play sport, and they've always been subtly brainwashed into appreciating the benefits of good food, freshly prepared and cooked. Which is all well and good when the family unit is their most significant social setting. Get 'em while they're young. © all the worlds' religions.
At the moment, all 3 of them still participate in regular team sports. They enjoy both the sport and the social life it offers. So (kind of) job done.
I would say, especially now that they're older and exist in a much wider and complex world, that seeing how much life enhancement I get from my own sporting activities and general fitness is the best thing I can do to encourage them to continue. Even though they're my own kids, and I encouraged them when they were younger, I would find it a complicated transaction to try and actively encourage them in a direct manner now that they are independent adults..
Which goes to show how hard it would be for me to do the same for any non-relations.
I'm imagining that social pressure from the whole, rather than individuals, is the most effective way of shaping behaviour. I see no sign of this happening any time soon in the UK.

[Nearholmer]

I’ll very quickly get accused of genetic determinism or something, but there is good research to show that people have evolved, like all other animals, to conserve energy for biologically essential activity in an environment where calories are hard to come by, and are wasted at peril.

So, now most of us in “the developed world” don’t live an existence where calories are hard to come by, quite the opposite in fact, we have a bit of a problem: our deep instincts tell us to conserve, while our rational minds tell us to burn off the excess we’ve taken on, because not doing so is harmful.

Result? Inner conflict over eating and exercise; broken New Year’s resolutions etc.

There’s a stack more going on than that, things around social norms and social signalling, the way society is organised etc, but this calorie conservation instinct is certainly part of the answer to the question posed.

[Jon in Sweden]

I hadn't considered the calorie conservation aspect. Do you think it's conscious or that people instinctively avoid activities that consume calories?

Pendodave - I'm trying to instill the same ethos with my kids too (though they are only 6 and 9) so we cycle, swim, ski and ice skate quite a bit. They also do gymnastics and table tennis after school, and their school is very sports focused. There are very few overweight children.

Tim-b - I was struggling to work my way through the articles to find anything that wasn't either a short summary or a full academic paper!

The same aforementioned co-worker also has a massive issue with the cold. I realise of course that women tend to be comfortable at slightly higher temperatures, but she's said she avoids cold drinks and has never swum in any of the lakes (we have a wonderful swimming lake 1200m from work, that I swim in twice a (work) day from April to September).

I suggested a program of acclimatisation, by starting in summer with daily dips and continuing on for as long as possible into autumn. Then couple ice dipping with sauna, and Bob's your mother's brother, you've got hot and cold endurance training nailed.

Cold exposure is also very important in developing and maintaining brown fat reserves, which is vital for non-shivering thermogenesis.

The upshot is often quite comical insofar as I'll be happily working in a t-shirt at 13-14c and she'll have at least 5 layers.

Either way, I'm not trying to focus on one individual, but just using her as an example of how the removal of two natural stressors (exercise and cold exposure) has had a large effect on her life, and she's honestly one of the fitter ones. One of the forklift drivers is so overweight I honestly worry he'll have a cardiac arrest climbing into his machine.

[Nearholmer]

Do you think it's conscious or that people instinctively avoid activities that consume calories?

Entirely sub-conscious.

We evolved in a world where we couldn’t depend on food being available, so we have a strong tendency to eat like pigs, and store energy as fat, when it is available, and a tendency to avoid “wasteful” activity. We’re permanently keeping ourselves ready for the next famine/winter-shortage, which in the developed world never arrives (thankfully).

Add to that a load of complex social norms and pressures, and many people find it difficult to change their habits and get fit.

One thing I have observed is that where I live there is a big difference in “exercise behaviour” between age bands and between social types. I would say that people born after say the mid-1970s are far more conscious of the need to exercise than a slightly earlier generation were/are, and that high- achievers, or high-strivers, are far more into exercise than others …… it’s almost as if some people value themselves highly, are frankly a bit vain about their physique, and are planning a long life, whereas others have slightly lower self-esteem, a less positive view of their future, and lower self-expectations. That’s a very broad generalisation, but I think it holds good at the broad level.

[horizon]

It's a vicious cycle.

Especially in Sweden in the winter.

[Jon in Sweden]

It's a vicious cycle.

Especially in Sweden in the winter.

Haha!

We had four inches of snow in the last 24hrs, but everything has been plowed so we're all good.

[Jon in Sweden]

Do you think it's conscious or that people instinctively avoid activities that consume calories?

Entirely sub-conscious.

We evolved in a world where we couldn’t depend on food being available, so we have a strong tendency to eat like pigs, and store energy as fat, when it is available, and a tendency to avoid “wasteful” activity. We’re permanently keeping ourselves ready for the next famine/winter-shortage, which in the developed world never arrives (thankfully).

Add to that a load of complex social norms and pressures, and many people find it difficult to change their habits and get fit.

One thing I have observed is that where I live there is a big difference in “exercise behaviour” between age bands and between social types. I would say that people born after say the mid-1970s are far more conscious of the need to exercise than a slightly earlier generation were/are, and that high- achievers, or high-strivers, are far more into exercise than others …… it’s almost as if some people value themselves highly, are frankly a bit vain about their physique, and are planning a long life, whereas others have slightly lower self-esteem, a less positive view of their future, and lower self-expectations. That’s a very broad generalisation, but I think it holds good at the broad level.

Interesting. I've noted the same thing too.

I think that the boomer generation is stuck in this transition from mostly manual work (both outside and inside the house) to mostly non-manual work. Even jobs that are physically demanding today are nothing compared to the regular graft of common folk 100 years ago.

That does also have an effect on life expectancy and health span (healthy life expectancy). People may be living longer now, but they conversely have an increased number of years at the end of their lives in poorer health.

That debilitated and disabled phase is what I am looking now (aged 39) to reduce to as close to zero as possible. I want to drop dead in my 90s climbing up some pointlessly steep mountain pass. I don't want to spend 10 years clinging onto life.

Almost everyone in life is better organised than me with things like their pension provisions, but what is honestly the point in spending so much time building a nest egg if you don't have the physical ability to enjoy it?

My wife and I were 'blue sky thinking' the other day, discussing what we'd like to do when we retire in 25 years time. It's unlikely we'll be well off, but we should be fit.

What was of great appeal was very slowly exploring Southern Europe every winter in an RV. Take 5-6 months to do 3000-4000 miles of driving and use bikes to explore every nook and cranny of Spain, Italy, the Balkans and Greece. An active, healthy and hopefully happy way to spend our retirement.

Anyway, I digress. Life is fairly short and get only get one go at it. Trying to keep yourself in good shape in fundamental to everything else.

[Nearholmer]

I think I’m technically a “boomer” myself (b1959), and what I notice is that a high proportion of guys my age and somewhat older, my pals, are genuinely scared of exercise, as in think that they’ll keel-over and drop-dead if they raise their heart-rate much above base, or work-up a sweat. Not all of course, I know a couple of serious “older athletes”, and sometimes meet legendary old guys and gals at cycling cafes, but there does seem to be a deep-set meme that heavy exercise is bad, rather than good, for you, and it’s a generational, not age, thing. Maybe too many of us saw our fathers pass away from heart failure, and somehow template their life experiences (bl@@dy hard, in many cases) onto our own (generally softer, and certainly with massively better childhood healthcare).

Also, even if we can work out why people don’t, moving from that to “getting them to do” is no small task.

[ed.lazda]

This is a gross oversimplification, but I think geneticists / nutritionists can identify two broad group of people: those whose metabolism tends to burn off excess calories and are fit, like to exercise, and are at an evolutionary advantage in terms of catching food; and those whose metabolism tends to store excess calories and aren't so keen on exercise, which puts them at an advantage in times of scarcity. So evolution can allow both to prosper. It's all (mostly and maybe) in the genes.

[Nearholmer]

^^^

Interesting.

[Pendodave]

I would say that people born after say the mid-1970s are far more conscious of the need to exercise than a slightly earlier generation were/are,

From the mid 60s, I reckon you are at least 10 years late.
Amongst my friends, I would say that most are aware of the need. As we are now close enough to the end to contemplate what we'd like to get out of our last few decades, we are acutely aware of the need to manage our physical condition.
We were of a generation which had little opportunity to be overweight before our 20s, and no entertainment beyond 3 (later 4) TV channels to keep us from "doing stuff".
I reckon we are the high water mark of uk health and vitality...!

[Nearholmer]

If we are, then heaven-help the slightly older, and slightly younger generations, because we aren’t, taken as a group, across the whole country, in great shape, especially the men.

Great long report here https://researchbriefings.files.parliam ... N03336.pdf, but summary is:

Now, this is only looking as weight, but that’s such a clear pointer to other things that it does well as a proxy for overall health and fitness.

BTW, you have to be a bit careful with reading from the figures for >74yo, because by 75 the most unlucky, unwell, or unfit 30% of people have already died, so you’re beginning to see the condition of the “the survivors”.

[al_yrpal]

One of the philosophers reckoned most of us are fundementally lazy. Lots of people dislike exercise. Speaking for the older brigade I think lots of us realise the need to exercise but lots dont do it. Sometimes thats because of arthritis and aches and pains. Apparently a bmi of a little over 25 is actually healthier in older years.

I have noticed that extreme exercisers often suffer joint problems in twilight years. Something to be avoided.

Al