Easy and meaningful? Or pathetic?

February 2, 2018 by Joshua
in Fitness

The dictionary defines pathetic as

Having a capacity to move one to either compassion or pity

In this post I’m not using pathetic to mean an insult in its familiar meaning. I mean it as having a capacity to move one to either compassion or pity.

How else would you describe these suggestions for New Year’s resolutions in this article, 8 Easy, Meaningful New Year’s Resolutions for Better Health besides evoking compassion or pity?

Get some physical activity daily.

Get enough sleep.

Don’t smoke.

Eat more fruits and vegetables.

Eat and drink less sugar.

Some might consider me insensitive to people’s challenges. I’m not criticizing or judging people who don’t exercise or eat fruits and vegetables. I feel compassion for them, not pity, which would mean I gave up on them, which I don’t. I’m asking how we got to where we present such suggestions as

  • Hard
  • Not parts of everyday life
  • Practices we expect to fail at
  • Things most people choose against

I see foods with no added sugar and eating fruits and vegetables as the best parts of life, not odd challenges to expect to fail at on annual attempts.

How have we—a species that evolved to hunt and gather for food—reached where large portions of the population needed exhorting to get even some physical activity? Where exhorting isn’t enough. That even with the message to get your heart pumping everywhere, many people don’t follow it at all?

. . . That people need to create new environments for themselves because our mainstream ones so promote sedentary lifestyles?

. . . That sugar, which exists due to giant factories removing all the nutrition from food, is something people have to work to avoid eating and drinking until they get diseases that cause blindness, limbs to die, and death? Yet people don’t avoid it? They eat and drink more than ever.

. . . What happened that the flavors and textures of fruits and vegetables—the article doesn’t even say to prefer fresh—that we evolved to keep us living have become something people need forcing to eat? Yet they still don’t eat them, favoring sugar and fiber-removed foods, devoid of rich or complex flavors or textures, just providing an addictive hit of pleasure.

The article’s picture shows a dark basement gym. I like gyms, but why present activity as a basement activity? What happened to living an active lifestyle, moving around as part of your life?

What happened to us?

What happened to active lifestyles?

What happened to active lifestyles?

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