By Robert L. Cain, Copyright 2021, Cain Publications, Inc.
Mornings and evenings couples stroll through the neighborhood enjoying each other’s company, admiring what neighbors have done and are doing to their yards, saying hello to and maybe gabbing with neighbors. Mornings they’re enjoying the cool of the day before the heat sets in. Evenings, they’re soaking in the remaining warmth. They stroll and walk because they enjoy it with little if any thought about exercise unless someone brings it up. After all, that’s not why they went for a walk. And by the time the walk ends, they feel restored and content.
There’s nothing unusual about morning and evening strolls; people have looked forward to them for thousands of years. But they are becoming more of a rarity now, even though we still see couples and single people walking every day.
Historically, walks were the only way to get around. As time went by and technology advanced, they remained the preferred method of transportation, especially in small towns where size lent itself to foot traffic. Even after modes of transportation—horses, wagons, trains, and cars—became well established, walking remained for many people pure enjoyment, something to be treasured. Others, took it one step further; famous writers, poets, and philosophers used and still use walking for formulating ideas and inspiration, getting their heads clear. Going for a walk is its own reward as people maybe—even unconsciously—realize as they take in the day and evening.
But the fitness industry has reduced the pleasure part of walks and relegated them instead only for “fitness,” exercise, and bragging. They even use smart-phone apps to prove the exercise accomplished. What happened to the simple pleasure of going for a walk? Walking has turned into something artificial, something that can be monetized, kept track of, guilt pitched, and obligated. Guilt and obligation demand that a walk be not just a pleasurable stroll and opportunity to see the world, admire sunsets, and greet neighbors but must serve a “fitness purpose.”
How did it come to this? It hasn’t been pretty, but it has been relentless. In city design, sidewalks became afterthoughts and optional. After all, who walks anymore? Traffic engineers came to consider walkers “pedestrian impedance,” or “vehicular delay.”
Fewer and fewer people walked. After all, walking met with discouragement. Instead, they got in their cars and drove to see friends and family even as short a distance as around the block. My neighborhood uses community mail boxes that are at most a block away from someone’s front door. But that block is “too far” for many people; they drive to check their mail then turn around and drive back home.
Society has denigrated pleasure walking. After all, you don’t have to walk to get anywhere, so why walk? You can drive, get a ride, or take public transportation. The health of the American people deteriorated. The result: an entirely new industry developed.
These days everything gets measured and reported, judged, and decried by those who would profit from it with their own “solutions” to whatever problem the data “proves.” Since 1976, for example, 24/7 Wall Street reports the average weight for men has increased 13.5 percent and for women 16.8 percent, up from 172.2 and 144.2 pounds in 1976 to 195.7 and 168.5 pounds respectively in 2018. As they berate us daily, lack of exercise constitutes a good share of the reason for ballooning weight.
Taking full advantage, the fitness industry has lobbied and rung in government to provide “guidelines” for how much we are supposed to exercise for good health and maybe fitness. How has that worked? Not much difference, is there?
The added lip service to “eating well” is suspect at best and completely wrong at worst, simply prolonging and provoking even more weight gain and declining fitness, eating food that packs on pounds, provides little nourishment, and makes people feel worse.
As health and fitness deteriorated. the constant high-pressure sales from fitness trackers, gyms, and exercise gurus redoubled. See them pitching guilt to those whose inclination is to sit at home and venture out only as far as the car where they can the drive-through McDonald’s and Taco Bell. The guilt works up to a point. Then it becomes self-defeating for both the hesitant exercisers and the fitness industry.
What can they do? It’s simple, the fitness industry ups to the standards, redoubling the guilt and obligation. They get employers to encourage or even mandate, specific numbers of steps a day and insurance companies to require fitness tracking for policyholders to get the best deals on policies. How do they know how many steps? That’s easy. Provide fitness tracking devices that tell how much exercise someone gets and report that to the “proper authorities.” Oh, the guilt!
Why is it self-defeating? Because of guilt. Pitch guilt and after a while people say enough is enough. They stay home and let those “other people” go out and walk, driving instead of walking. They quit the fitness tracking because it makes them feel bad. They replace possible enjoyment of a walk with obligation, guilt, and demoralization.
Sure, walking is good for you. It gets blood moving, lets you breathe fresh air, loosens up muscles, and gives you a glow that will last for hours. But if you feel obligated to do it in order to get fit or report your exercise to a boss, an insurance company, or the government, it won’t be long before resentment sets in and excuses pop up for not walking. It’s much easier at that point to rationalize why you don’t want to walk, why it’s just a waste of time, why you can put it off. It will interfere with the game you want to watch. Besides, it looks like it might rain, or is too hot, or is too cold. Your knee is “acting up,” and you’ve got some yard work to do (that may be a reasonable one). With all that to consider, the dog doesn’t need a walk right now, and you’re too tired, anyway. You have a big day ahead and don’t want to exhaust yourself. The exercise can wait until tomorrow. . . . You might be able to think of a few more “good” excuses.
Meanwhile, folks in their neighborhoods thinking nothing about exercise, only about the pleasure of a walk, go out for a stroll to enjoy the cool or warmth, each other’s company, friendly neighbors.
So instead of thinking of walking as exercise, as only for fitness, as an obligation, if you thought of it as something to be fully enjoyed and anticipated. How might that change motivation? Even a walk as short as around the block can rejuvenate even the more wayward body.
My thoughts turn to where I will walk today not how far, how fast, how sweaty, or whom I’m going to brag to. What haven’t I seen for a long time? A “long time” might mean a week or a month, but I don’t keep track.
I feel a walk coming on and I’m going to fully enjoy it.
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