Okay, I admit it…

Firstly, I do keep an eye on comments, and am always thrilled and grateful when people a) add to b) reply about c) criticise a lot or d) just generally get involved in a conversation on this blog.  To you all: my thanks.

Secondly, as Tim Minchin once pointed out, all those people who, as a humanities student at LSE, I’d cower from or laugh at, who take regular exercise while the rest of us sit at home reading books: you’re right, I’m wrong.

This isn’t a new or exciting revelation.  I haven’t spontaneously discovered a love of exercise and make no mistake, I will never be a gym-savvy-tastic kinda lady.  I do not wish to exercise in order to achieve bulgy arms or a ‘perfect’ body, not least because, if we are going to waxy sociological here, ‘perfect’ is a word which should be taken out and summarily executed for all the harm it has inflicted on men and women down the years.  I do not wish to be admired for my body, although if anyone wants to admire the fact that, despite the pain, I sometimes look after it against all odds, that’s more open for discussion, in the sense that my motivation sometimes wavers and the occasional ego-boost wouldn’t go amiss, if it helps me carry on.

No – I wish to exercise because, when I am 83 years old, I don’t want to be in chronic pain.  Plain and simple.  My Dad took almost no exercise and died young; my Gran likewise took not much exercise and is in distress in her old age.  My Mum walks absolutely everywhere, and is in extraordinarily good nick.  I look at my family, and the moral doesn’t take a genius to suss.

All of which brings me back to sometimes reading comments on my blog, particularly a comment by Salubri which directed me to Neila Rey.  To Salubri: my especial thanks.  Leaving aside the fact that Neila Rey’s website is full of the kind of nerdy references that I love; ignoring the funky images and the sensible advise, one of the real reasons why I’m mentioning it now is, unsurprisingly, more social than physical.

Exercise is expensive.  A swim at my local pool is £4.45; to swim twice a week, every week, is £35 a month, which if you’re struggling to make ends meet, is a lot.  Gyms and clubs require monthly memberships, and as someone who can spend whole months in rehearsal rooms or tech, unable to do anything except rage against my lighting console, the mathematics just doesn’t add up.  I am not hugely skint; neither do I have an employer, a guarantee of employment, any prospects of a pension or certainty of pay.  Committing to memberships is bad logic.

Even leaving aside my personal situation, there’s another, nastier truth lurking beneath this all – that exercise, and by implication good health – runs the risk of being a prerogative of the wealthy.  To exercise regularly, you need time.  To have time you need to not be holding down two jobs, raising a family by yourself, pinching pennies and struggling to make ends meet.  Whenever our government proclaim that the poor aren’t trying hard enough to get rich, I want to beat the offending minister over the head with a tin of sardines, screaming, ‘how, when every day is a battle for the basics, how do you think anyone has the time or the money or the energy to achieve the good health and full education which they desire?!’  And in energy, I don’t just mean physical energy – I mean the emotional energy, the strength of will, that it takes to exercise, after another day of anxiety and working to the mill.

The same argument extends to healthy food.  I have more time than most, courtesy of my freelance life, but when working flat out there’s no choice but to eat badly, because I don’t have the time to eat well.  Fresh, good food is more expensive than cheap processed stuff.  There is a social divide in this country that isn’t merely defined by a wealth gap, but also by a health gap.  Exercise is part of that problem.

So!  To Neila Rey again, and to those communities and voices that promote exercise and good health for everyone, either for free or for as little as possible.  Exercising when you don’t have other people egging you on can be hard.  And so to every free online resource, every library guide on fitness, every online community that supports fellows in its disciplines, every park running group, every local football pitch where you can kick a ball around of an evening, every budget cookery class in the local hall, or online recipes for meals which are quick, healthy and cheap; to every communal basketball court and local noticeboard inviting people to do stuff, for free, together – to them I give thanks.

Nor should we be shaming people, putting up false idols of ‘perfect’ bodies with ‘perfect’ abs and ‘perfect’ weight – these are falsehoods that only serve to make health even less accessible than it already is.  Eating well, and living well, should be as intrinsic rights, not luxuries.