The headlines rage: The people are unfit! The people are unhealthy!
Constant news articles tell us that the people are too fat, too thin, smoking too much, or just generally unhealthy. Why is this everywhere? Is it because the government is concerned about our well-being? Of course not –- it’s all about saving them money.
Sick people cost the state money. They take up valuable hospital space and often require insurance or government pay-outs. This is the only reason for the current interest of the state in the private health of citizens.
Let’s take a moment to ponder this thought. Ignoring the people who have become ill via their own self-destructive tendencies (e.g. alcoholism), exactly why are some of these problems on the rise? Simple answer: The government did it.
Most people work at 9-5 jobs which involve little or no exercise. When an adult comes home, there are children and housework to do. Fast food is everywhere, and having little time for anything but work, they graze here and there, nibbling at whatever high fat product is the cheapest.
Before the urban desk job, people moved around more and burned off the calories. Now, only the wealthy or unemployed have time for exercise.
Likewise, more people than ever have serious vitamin D deficiencies from lack of sunlight. The forty hour week is turning us into a species of sickly obese hairless urban rats that dwell inside a central warren.
The government, in lieu of preventing the problem, complains about it with well-intentioned press releases: “The people are fat, the people are unhealthy”, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the lifestyle it imposes on working adults is the leading factor in creating this new species of light-shunning hefty hominids.
On one hand it dishes out sloth and gluttony, and on the other hand it punishes the people who obediently and diligently labor to make themselves ill in the name of the all-powerful, almighty state. It then laments this condition as if its acts were not the proximate cause of this condition.
To avoid being slowly killed by crippling Vitamin D levels and/or weight problems, we need to think in terms of prevention.
Cut the working week and bring the cost of housing down to realistic levels. At the moment it takes two average incomes to sustain a mortgage. Bring the cost of housing down and create 20 hour per week positions so the people can become healthy and productive again.
A nation of sickly, depressed workers is not a strong nation. It is not a happy nation. It is a sick nation, and sickness is not conducive to prosperity. Heal the people, heal the country. Prevention is always the remedy.
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Office jobs existed 50 years ago without current problems. What else might have been introduced to make people fat, ugly, tired, depressed, and dysfunctional?
Fifty years ago there were half as many people going to those office jobs, because most women did not work. People worked less and took more time off during the day. Fewer people had office jobs, since those were reserved for people doing actual thought-work. Sadly, we were not diverse or able to hire as many people back then as we do now, but people were not functionaries sitting around playing on Facebook waiting for the day to end after doing 15 minutes of real work and attending two meetings.
Are you sure it was just in an early stage of development?
Yes, it takes a bit of time for the results of a lifestyle to become evident. A few decades back, office jobs were only starting to become more common-place (and this only applied to men), and like mentioned above, the percentage of employed people in office jobs was nowhere near the huge number it is today. Hence, we did not see the adverse effects on such a big-scale as we see it today.
It’s like general health. You eat junk food, weigh 400 pounds, smoke six packs a day, etc. and then like magic 30 years later you drop dead. But you get away with it for many years. It takes even more time for a society at large.
Fast food. HFCS.
This is a great article because it touches on one of those topics that no one thinks about, but everyone should be thinking about.
Here’s my question. Of all the stuff we do in offices, how much is actually necessary, and how much are we doing to be “good workers” so we don’t get fired? If something is not necessary, why are we doing it, since our health/sanity would be better served by going home and spending time with our families, or wandering around, or even God-help-us *thinking*.
A friend of mine is a consultant and he gets called in to different offices. Usually what he finds is that there are too many people to work effectively together. Each person has been given such a narrow task that they are bored and as a result spend very little time on actual work. He usually recommends they cut staff, give individual people more leeway, and work on two-year “contracts” so that people know they will not be fired during that time.
He’s more gentle than I am. The first thing I’d do is block Facebook, Pinterest and blogspot/wordpress at the router.
Sometimes the best articles on this site get the fewest response. This is because those articles say what is obviously true so well that we all just sort of nod and say “Yup that says it all” and then go off to work. Where there might be doughnuts.
Not to mention that there are many people who are supposed to sit for 8 hours in front of a computer while doing, sometimes not even half of that time actual work. The work given to them could be easily accomplished in 4 or less hours, however they are supposed to sit there double than it is necessary, or less get a cut in salary, penalties, or fired directly.
As always in modernity, it is all a matter of appearance and nothing more.
“As always in modernity, it is all a matter of appearance and nothing more.”
That’s true. Jobs themselves force us to consider appearance before actuality, so everyone is faking it except the professionals, who have to actually do something or get sued.
The government is not the main problem. Sure, it has set up a minefield of bad decision traps for people to fall into, however, it always comes down to the individual. Good food is not expensive. It is not that hard to eat correctly and get *at least* 30 minutes of exercise in a day. The modern has become too obsessed with comfort and safety. Why eat some lean chicken and veggies when we could shuffle into Wal-Mart and get some slop in a plastic dish (now with 900mg of Sodium!) we can bombard with microwaves when we get home?
The problem is too much ease and the general acceptance of laziness.
“The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
The problem is that the government sets the standard which becomes the minimum which is what everyone else does.
40 hours is where it starts. But why not work 60? If you want to get ahead, you will. Then you buy a house 30 minutes away where you can afford it and it is safe. Then you are working 12 hours a day five days a week, with an hour of commuting per day and at least a half-hour of getting prepared.
The big point is however that we don’t need to spend 60 hours or even 30 hours at the office. We would all be happier spending 20 hours, making them intense hours, and then going home to be with our families.
Not everyone feels this way, but those are generally the people who do not have happy home lives or have none. I don’t think we should pander to those people. We should spend our concern on the happy people instead.
Ah, the thought of all those happy people…
A bugs-bunny scene comes to mind.
There really are people like that, and those are the very people that should be sitting at desks, in offices.
While others, more suited to ditch-digging, should be doing that.
Yet another consequence of ‘equality’, where anybody can do anything, suited or unsuited to it, in order to have a ‘job’.
It’s like a scene from outer-space.
“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” specifically.
You’re right, it’s not healthy to blame all our problems on someone else.
However the problem here is that we need a certain amount of hours each day just for ourselves, to replenish and to relax. When we are all working 40 or 50 hours a week that time gets crunched so we cut back on exercise and food to have more time.
Most people waste this time, but they still need it. If we all stopped working so much we might have more time to discover our souls.
I find the excuse that work makes people not exercise a poor one, because if people had all the time in the world, they still wouldn’t exercise. It is too much for the lazy and glutton. TV and the couch are the hallmarks of Americanism.
Simply put. They are corrupted and aren’t pure.
However. I will say this.
Whenever you tell a boss that you need time off for school that is acceptable (although I could argue true learning does not take place). When you tell a boss you need time off for the gym/exercise they will laugh at you or even fire you because you are not serious. Medical journals are taken by a grain salt by the populace. Nutrition is a joke because most people are “Just lovin’ it.”
Stupidity reigns.
Even though postmodernism doesn’t “require” the physical fitness, our biology is slow to change to such rapid technology. Understanding the bane of technology and the virtue makes someone better off, in my opinion.
Because in the last two centuries, exercise, for the first time is seen as an extracurricular activity–like playing video games–instead of survival and essential to life.
A nation of the sickly depends on superficial systematic changes for healthcare, where the problem affects the spiritual core a nation, and changing to socialism won’t halt the sickly society–and only spur it further off the cliff of degeneration.
Like I mention before no leader would want to be unpopular. An unpopular leader would say “changing the system of healthcare has nothing to do with health. Health has to you with yourself. America is degenerate; period.” People want solutions not blame. A noble leader will only lead those who are WORTHY to be lead, “You deserve to be the sickly nation as you are. Degenerate.”
As a post-Fascist, I embraced the notion of spiritual regeneration, self-development for the betterment of a society as a whole (and yourself), and taking the middle way of both progressiveness and conservatism rhetoric as it doesn’t encompass the complexity of life.
I’d like to add to what Sun has said above. While what Eleanor has written points toward the problem, it looks to place too much blame on the government.
We must (always) remember that:
a) the government consists of normal(-ish) citizens
b) the government is willingly given the power it is given by the majority of voters.
So, to draw an artificial distinction between government and the rest of the population is an error. Of course, that probably was not what was intended, and to some extent the *bureaucratic machine* which is the modern government cannot really be said to be under anyone’s “control” (and is thus “separate” from any individual), but I think it should be mentioned.
Ultimately, your personal health rests with you (duh). Sure, modern society (created by individuals, perpetuated by individuals, held up as an ideal by individuals) virtually forces you to be sedentary for 40+ hours a week in order to make a decent living. Like others have mentioned above though, it’s not that hard to eat correctly (low carb, high protein and fat. the more organic the better. favour veg over fruit. and lastly, junk- food is, just that, junk.) and fit in some exercise into your daily/weekly routine.
For modern parents it is slightly trickier, at least in terms of finding time for exercise (I don’t think the travails of child-rearing is an excuse of bad-eating – this is simply laziness and seeing food as some sort of drug that’s meant to keep you happy instead of sustain you). However, as I understand it, if you rear your children properly, and thus engage in some form of play with them on a near-daily basis, you already have part of that taken care of. The rest can be achieved when you realise that spending hours watching television (or movies/series on your PC) is time mostly wasted (nature/”insightful” documentaries ain’t that great and constitute about 1% of the crap on television), and could rather be spent being active in some way or other.
There are ways and means to circumvent the slow death-trap which is the modern job. It is not ideal, and I agree that far less time is needed to do what needs doing, but in the meantime, for most sensible people, the above can be achieved without getting fired, being unable to do your job “correctly” (which means little these days), or having no time for anything but eating and exercising.
There is truth to this, but there’s also the point that most people are not enlightened specimens. It’s also true that competition forces many people to adhere to a schedule they would not ordinarily keep.
What do you mean by “most people are not enlightened specimens?”
Do you mean they are not capable of acquiring the wisdom that I written, or was it to allude to something else entirely?
(By the way I enjoy your post A. Realist. Keep throwing cold water on us until we wake up!)
I assume he means: most people are not enlightened specimens.
The word ‘specimens’ is probably redundant, since it would appear that the “not enlightened” applies to the term “most people”.
If most people were enlightened, then they would no longer be referred to as ‘enlightened’. They would merely be ‘people’.
But this enlightened state – for most people – is not one that is likely to occur any time soon.
All true. The point is that the vast majority of people in any place are dependent on a social order to keep them in line, and everyone else follows them because of competition. This is why government is the source of this problem, as are the attitudes of people in modern times.
It is a shame that politics so often creeps into political websites.
Think of all the fun we might have, were this not the case.
Oh well. Maybe some fun can be had, in spite of the politics…
Let’s set up a monarchy and then we don’t have to worry about politics. We can talk about exciting sports and shopping instead.
Or gardening, or ethnic-jewellery-making…
The possibilities are endless.
Where are we going to get a monarch from?
Probably a chrysalis.
You are one to watch; too clever by far :)
[...] “Cling“, “Burning Again”Eleanor Griffin – “Work is Killing You”Forest Johnson – “The Good Leader“, “Wisdom”Schopenbecq – [...]
Do you really think the government would sacrifice short-term tax income and productivity for long-term health,psychological and financial benefits for its populace?
Silly! The government only sacrifices tax income if it’s for keeping drugs illegal, and productivity if it’s for sending kids to college to put them in debt. That makes much more sense.