I wasn’t aware that the government had set me targets, but apparently they have and I’m not meeting them.
The study found that nearly 80% of the population fails to hit key national government targets – performing moderate exercise for 30 minutes at least 12 times a month. It found that just over 8% of adults who could walk had not – with the exception of shopping – walked continuously for five minutes within the previous four weeks, while 46% had not walked for leisure for 30 minutes continuously over the same period. Almost nine out of 10 had not swum and a similar proportion had not used a gym.
I wouldn’t be seen dead in a gym and I hate swimming and have done so since I was forced to do it as a child. I can avoid drowning and that’s good enough for me. I don’t measure how much or how little I walk, but I suspect that despite my moderate levels of fitness – I can be pretty active if I need to be – I don’t reach those targets.
I was just wondering how I can say “fuck off” to these interfering busybodies politely. Oh, sod it, why bother? Please do just fuck off! My levels of fitness, the amount of exercise I do – or choose not to do is my business, however much you find it “shockingly low”. If it causes me problems down the line, well, that’s my lookout, not yours. And as for your targets – you know where you can stick them. No one sets me targets – no one. Ever. Okay?
The government has raised its targets for physical activity, up from 12 to 18 times a month. “If 80% of people haven’t been hitting the first target, it raises questions about why the government has raised it,” Propper said.
Well, yes, given that despite any attempts to use policy interventions, it is up to each of us as individuals, not the government to decide how much physical activity we indulge in. As I said, fuck your targets.
“had not – with the exception of shopping – walked continuously for five minutes” – huh, so what’s the deal with that then. Is pushing a trolley around Tesco’s for 45 minutes somehow less valuable than walking around the car park while someone else does the shopping?
It’s only exercise if you *choose* to do it, all the other stuff *have* to you do doesn’t count? Bollocks!
It’s odd, the way that it has to be ‘leisure’ to count. My postman, for example, would fail to meet the walking target despite covering an extensive round on foot every morning because, as he tells me, he spends the rest of the day in his garden.
I can only imagine that the statisticians and others behind these targets are so desk-bound and lacking in imagination that they have no concept of the people out there for whom a day’s work far exceeds a week’s worth of picking things up and putting them down again in a gym.
LR I heartily concur with your indignation! How dare they!
Indeed. My work keeps me fairly active – when motorcycle training I’m moving about a fair bit when students are on the pad and at each end of the day I’m manhandling the machines. When I’m railway training, I tend to do a fair bit of walking – some of it on the ballast.
Fuck the government and fuck their stupid targets.
I agree with you fuck the targets and fuck the pratts who come up with this tripe because most of them have government provided cars and are so obese they can’t walk a few paces let alone for 5 minutes continuously.
We are quite active going for walks every day and mostly for half an hour or longer at a time, because WE LIKE IT. Not because the idiots in whitehall think we should.
I love to swim and until last year lived near the beach and swam on a regular basis, now I live in a big city miles from the sea this is not practical and I would no sooner use the pakie infested local pool than swim in the ganges.
Despite all this activity I have gained weight this has NOTHING to do with activity or lack of it, it is purely down to the fact I was clinically depressed and never ate anything, existing solely on a diet of fags and cups of Tea!
Now I am no longer depressed and eat well, so I have gained weight, yes all my clothes are a wee bit tight and that makes me feel a bit “BOO HOO” in all the time i was not eating I never got sick, since I started eating properly i have had 3 ear infections and an allergy rash that itched like FUCK.
So much for healthy eating and exercise keeping you fit and well!
I don’t eat excessively now mark you just what I should be eating.
So it’s all beyond me!
The Government has a bloody statistic and answer for everything, well sorry I’d rather work it out myself.
Screw them and their little dog too…..
Well, if they ever decided to force us to exercise for leisure, it wouldn’t be leisure. I mean, I never really considered cross-country running at school particularly leisurable. Even when I walked (which was about 90% of the time).
Yeah, I did that. I detested football (still do – stupid game) and volunteered to go on cross country runs. Once out of sight, the little band of refusniks then ambled about for an hour before running back to the school. Got away with it for years.
I actually managed to thumb a lift for part of the cross country course once.
Ambled about? We used to go round to my mate’s house and wait it out before rejoining.
None of my mates lived close enough for that. We were bussed in each day.
There’s an irritating little phrase in the latest one of those cheesy Change4Life ads that are on the radio these days – the one about physical activity, where they tell you to get off the bus a stop earlier than normal and walk the rest of your journey and other such “handy” tips. After all the insinuations about all the nasty illnesses which you might avoid (carefully phrased as “lower risk from,” you’ll note – no guarantees from these lying scumbags), they say: “And you’ll feel better, too.”
How dare they tell me how I’m going to feel if I do as they say! How the hell do they know what’s going to make me “feel better?” I used to be fit as a fiddle – loads of dance classes, aerobics classes, gym sessions, sports etc – because I come from a very sporty family and physical activity, to them, was like going to church is in some other families – it was just something that “you did.” I continued with it for many years after leaving home – relentlessly dragging myself off to workouts and all number of fitness classes several times a week – until one day it was like a little light came on over my head like they do in cartoons. I was trying to work out why I always felt so tired and stressed and rushed, and I suddenly realised that it was because for all those years I’d never actually enjoyed any of those “physical jerks” sessions I’d felt obliged to attend. I simply never had enough time to do anything that I wanted to do, whether that was watching mindless TV, reading a book, going on the Internet, having a long, hot bath etc etc.
So, overnight, I stopped. All of them. All at once. And do you know, I’ve never felt more relaxed or happier or calmer. Yes, I now carry a bit more weight than I used to, but I’m not obese by anyone’s measure and at the end of the day, I’d rather be slightly fat and very happy than lean, mean and very miserable. It’s as simple as that. Contrary to what these “experts” may tell you, exercise does not automatically make you happier just because you’ve done it and there are some people (I know, I’m one of them) for whom there is no “type of exercise” which is enjoyable – I’ve tried pretty much all of them at some time or another, I loathe them all equally and don’t enjoy any of them in the slightest.
In my experience, what makes you “feel better” is being allowed to live your life in the way that you want to live it, without the interfering hectoring of a bunch of self-appointed “experts” who seem to think that they can apply their one-size-fits-all philosophy to the hoi polloi and ensure a wonderful, happy-clappy, smiley, obedient, population where we all look like some kind of TV-commercial family – all having lovely, jolly “fun” together and laughing hysterically at the sheer joy of being so sickeningly perfect in every way. Yeah, right …
There! Rant over!
could not agree more heartily Jax, life is about enjoyment not self torture best enjoy it while you can. Instead of fretting about a wee bit of excess weight or whether you walked enough miles today.
All this self punishment is surely worse for one’s well being than no bloody exercise.
Stop and smell the flowers and enjoy it.
😀
I can avoid drowning and that’s good enough for me.
Are you sure, LR, if you haven’t practised? 🙂
It’s not something you forget how to do. Besides, you don’t need to be able to swim to avoid drowning. I was taught how to do it by the Royal Navy. No exercise or practice required.
It’s more of the “Team games ” & school sports” fascist shite, isn’t it?
We’ve been over this ground before.
Wankers