A great weight has been lifted from my shoulders, although not alas from my steadily expanding midriff. Half the nation does no exercise. I am not alone in my guilt. Let us lie back comfortably on our sofas for a few moments and consider why this may be so.
According to the study by Sport England, young, wealthy white men living in the south-east - a demographic that includes me, if you're not too hung up on age or money - are the people most likely to be doing some sort of healthy activity for the recommended 30 minutes, three times a week. But I don't. Why? Simple: I loathe sport and I dread exercise.
Like many people whose fitness report card was marked "disappointing" last week by sports minister Richard Caborn, I don't consider myself a slop or a slouch. I eat fairly carefully, drink moderately, don't smoke and take reasonable care over my general health and appearance. But, as an inveterate gym-dodger, the phrase "recreational exercise" makes no sense to me.
I trace this back to my school days. Playgrounds and sports fields are unforgiving places for uncoordinated, unathletic children. I sharply recall the continual humiliations of team trade-offs on games afternoons, of staring down at the frozen, churned ground alongside four other boys, misfit line-up of asthmam short-sightedness, obesity and bookish ineptitude - while the gods of sixth form weighed up our relative feebleness in front of the assemble year group.
At the time, it riled me that no one ever seemed to explain the rules - anyone worth bothering with, it seemed, picked them up intuitively. It's no wonder that people like me who hated sports and its endless indignities gave them up the minute we were no longer forced to take part in them.
As an adult, I've sustained a solitary swimming habit for short periods. But really - all that changing, and showering, and carting of sopping, chemical-stinking kit. I've joined gyms and wasted hundreds of pounds not going, because the sight of myself running nowhere into a mirrow makes me feel rididculous. For four years I managed a weekly lunch time Pilates class, but a new job broke that habit. I started cycling to work, but the clownish juggling of clothing, locks, lights and fluorescent paraphernalia just became another hurdle to jumb every morning and night.
And this, I think, is the crux of everything: unless you truly love it, sport will always be just another chore to cram into our ever more hectic days, alongside the cooking, cleaning, laundry and other assorted drudgery. Who has time for more of that when there are still five portions of fruit and veg to get through before bedtime?
According to the study by Sport England, young, wealthy white men living in the south-east - a demographic that includes me, if you're not too hung up on age or money - are the people most likely to be doing some sort of healthy activity for the recommended 30 minutes, three times a week. But I don't. Why? Simple: I loathe sport and I dread exercise.
Like many people whose fitness report card was marked "disappointing" last week by sports minister Richard Caborn, I don't consider myself a slop or a slouch. I eat fairly carefully, drink moderately, don't smoke and take reasonable care over my general health and appearance. But, as an inveterate gym-dodger, the phrase "recreational exercise" makes no sense to me.
I trace this back to my school days. Playgrounds and sports fields are unforgiving places for uncoordinated, unathletic children. I sharply recall the continual humiliations of team trade-offs on games afternoons, of staring down at the frozen, churned ground alongside four other boys, misfit line-up of asthmam short-sightedness, obesity and bookish ineptitude - while the gods of sixth form weighed up our relative feebleness in front of the assemble year group.
At the time, it riled me that no one ever seemed to explain the rules - anyone worth bothering with, it seemed, picked them up intuitively. It's no wonder that people like me who hated sports and its endless indignities gave them up the minute we were no longer forced to take part in them.
As an adult, I've sustained a solitary swimming habit for short periods. But really - all that changing, and showering, and carting of sopping, chemical-stinking kit. I've joined gyms and wasted hundreds of pounds not going, because the sight of myself running nowhere into a mirrow makes me feel rididculous. For four years I managed a weekly lunch time Pilates class, but a new job broke that habit. I started cycling to work, but the clownish juggling of clothing, locks, lights and fluorescent paraphernalia just became another hurdle to jumb every morning and night.
And this, I think, is the crux of everything: unless you truly love it, sport will always be just another chore to cram into our ever more hectic days, alongside the cooking, cleaning, laundry and other assorted drudgery. Who has time for more of that when there are still five portions of fruit and veg to get through before bedtime?
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