What is your mindset on fitness? There are many activities from which one can choose. What are your perceptions of wellness? the spiritual and mental qualities are just as important as the physical. What are your conceptions of functionality? Moving well is a criterion for living well. Convenience in modern society severs the ‘everyday person’ from wellness, fitness, and functionality enhancing activities and actions. Opting for short term convenience circumvents opportunities to naturally stimulate the body. Societal norms can become more normalized toward healthier lifestyles.
The availability of convenience increasingly permeates society as time passes. There are devices that can store information, thereby absolving people of remembering, say, multiple telephone numbers. Cars are driven one half of a mile to the convenience store, hence forgoing the opportunity for a nice walk. Convenience of comfort surrounds us as we watch television or play video games. Convenience has become more of a hinderance than a help for culture – more specifically, the culture of the United States. U.S. Citizens have become an obese and lazy population, of their own volition. There is the widespread assumption that everyone makes use of modern convenience.
The requirements of and benefits gained from ‘doing things’ are minimized in the face of modern convenience. The majority of people do not consider ‘doing things’ due to this availability of convenience. People are socialized away from physicality. Indeed, elevators and escalators are chosen over stairs. My personal favorite (not) is to find a parking space as near as possible to the entry of a business. Some will circle a parking lot in sharklike fashion in search of such a space. Returning shopping carts to a corral is occasionally overlooked because there is an attendant who will clean up behind the customer.
Modern convenience and current society are intertwined such that the assumption of everyone making use of it is taken for granted. The rise of total connectivity makes it a challenge to be private. Many people believe that anyone who does not use convenience (for example, automobile air conditioners) is not keeping up with the times. In the case of air conditioning, one must ask ‘what were people doing prior to the advent of that convenience? The bodily ability to regulate internal temperature is compromised by air conditioning. Studies indicate that living and working in indoor thermal environments for long periods of time affects physiological acclimatization. In general, people that eschew modern convenience are viewed as being ‘out of step’.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21950966/
Altering societal views toward health enhancing activities will be challenging. Fitness is presented such that financial stability correlates to consistency in maintaining health. Those who work long hours come home to spend time with family or confine themselves to audio-visual prison. There often is little time or motivation to engage in health promoting activity. Less affluent communities do not offer public venues, other than school playgrounds, for healthy activities. The affinity for using that which is available, without concomitant motivation, does not bode well for the general populous. Perhaps society norms could promote health conscious activities, ways in which money is not a hindrance. This would require government funding, at least something near to the millions of dollars that industry spends on making convenience attractive.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5225122/
We must all do better in order to live well as a society. Not only are there barriers to fitness but there is also a challenge to accepting each other as equals. The barriers to fitness can be overcome with input from those who can contribute time, knowledge and caring. Society can be swayed into more acceptance of and commitment to fitness as a beneficial alternative to convenience. Image presentation will be indispensable in promoting fitness in such a light. If the general population could get behind pushing elected officials in this direction, the nation would be less dependent upon the health care system for remedying general un-wellness. I can be achieved but the idea must become a society wide initiative.
Ab-Sutra Wellness and Fitness 