Be The First To Read What The Experts Are Saying About Self-Improvement

Reprinted from: National Times

By:Tanveer Ahmed, Publisher in National Times

A majority of my friends appear to be overdoing it. From running half marathons regularly with their heart rate monitors on to completing the latest triathlon, they are part of a growing middle-class obsession with exercise.

It is apparent in the profusion of white-collar body types we now see honed from cycling hundreds of kilometres – muscular calves and thighs but thin torsos with poorly developed pectoral muscles.

Triathlon administrators report a doubling of participants in the past decade as the elite sport has been democratised through shorter, more accessible distances.

Meanwhile, the number of entrants in the City2Surf consistently breaks records. Gym memberships, although flattening during the economic downturn, remain sky high.

This is surely a good thing, right? Almost certainly it is, although it does not appear that it is solely, or even mostly, about the physical health of the middle class. As a nation, we are not getting any thinner or healthier with regards to markers such as diabetes or heart disease.

This sort of obsessional, strenuous exercise is often far greater than that required for good health and satisfies other yearnings.

For a growing number of people, this trend is about something more – another channel of self-improvement, artificial happiness from a chemical rush, or an escape from unsatisfying jobs or relationships.

The long-term benefits of vigorous exercise, be it for weight loss or mental health, can be overstated. Many obesity researchers now believe that very frequent, low-level physical activity – the kind humans did for tens of thousands of years before the leaf blower was invented – may work better for us than the heavy bouts of exercise you get as a gym rat.

The conventional wisdom that hardcore exercise is essential for shedding pounds is fairly new. As recently as the 1960s, doctors routinely advised against rigorous exercise. Today, doctors encourage even their oldest patients to exercise, for it can reduce their risk of suffering all manner of diseases – those of the heart in particular.

But in the past few years, obesity research has shown that the role of exercise in weight loss can be wildly exaggerated, because most of us reward ourselves by eating sugary calories after a workout.

Exercise is particularly important for mental health patients. Studies have shown that, especially in the short term and in mild cases of depression, it can be as powerful an anti-depressant as medication.

But in reality, even as a mood stimulant, exercise can be overrated. In the 1960s, a physical fitness movement grew up among specialists who prescribed exercise for heart trouble. This was science.

In the 1980s, a second movement grew up around primary care doctors who prescribed exercise for unhappiness, based on the endorphin theory. It remains one of the regular weapons psychologists use in treating depressed clients.

But its long-term power is overstated. It overlaps very much with the misguided notion of depression being distinct from the circumstances of our lives and merely a chemical problem.

Take eating disorder patients, for example, who usually approach exercise in the most obsessive, unhealthy way – victims of a society that associates thinness with morality and fat with sin.

This modern attitude is further exemplified by a spate of weight loss shows dressed up as gladiatorial contests, where personal trainers acquire a moral worth akin to the clergy.

Many others who engage in compulsive exercise also do so to feel more in control of their lives. They often define their self-worth through their athletic performance and try to deal with emotions such as anger or depression by pushing their bodies to the limit.

Fitness culture gives people a reason to feel proud. Because the measures of success in fitness culture bear no relation to those in real life, it produces an artificial and achievable happiness. In real life, people may need to be rich, famous or powerful to succeed. In fitness culture, looking trim or jogging an extra few kilometres can constitute a win.

For those of us feeling static in the rest of our lives, disconnected from nature and unable to feel time’s progression, obsessive exercise in itself becomes a goal, a steady stream of accomplishment and a measure of time’s progression through self-improvement.

I am not suggesting that exercise is a bad thing. It is critical for good health, especially in our sedentary age, when we are fast catching up with the United States as the fattest nation on earth. But recreational exercise is largely a middle-class obsession that is often about much more than weight loss.

In our secular age, sometimes the yearning for transcendence, distraction or meaning can come in the unlikeliest forms.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/fitness-fascination-stretches-the-truth-20120202-1qvii.html#ixzz1lrMzxThT

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