Comment by jedrek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jedrek | Hacker News Reader

I think it's amazing the way we've completely sidelined physical activity - not exercise per se, but any physical activity - in our western lives. Unless you live without a car, there is no requirement for you to walk more than 1000 steps during the day. Wake up, drive to work, sit at your desk, drive to a restaurant for dinner, drive home, plop down on your couch. Rinse, repeat.

Even if you do decide to work out, it tends to be the first thing you drop when you don't have time. Or you worked late. Or you forget your gym clothes. Or you're just too exhausted to go.

We used to be active, our jobs required motion, we had to walk or cycle to work, or even take public transportation - which requires you to at least walk to the stop and back.

Now we literally sit on our asses, day in, day out, and wonder why so many people are obese.

But especially so in the US in comparison to Europe - in the US the urban form implicitly precludes walking through low density of housing and lack what we call pavement in the UK, whereas in Europe more people live in settlements that are focused on an identifiable centre, with walking routes to that centre. Even worse, in some places in the US walking is explicitly banned! However even in spite of that we manage in Europe to be following the US in porking out as a population, so I guess we must be walking less over here also. Personally I find myself walking less and less these days because I can feel the diesel soot making my chest tight, and that really cannot be good for my health. The sooner they get rid of diesel the better.

This sounds particularly American, rather than for the entire west.

We like to think so, but there are swaths of Western European where this is true. Replace the Dodge with a Citroen, the Walmart with Tesco, and the Olive Garden with a pub. Even in the most pro-bike and public transportation nations in Europe 20-30% of adults drive to work.

> We used to be active

Being fit, or at least not fat, was also a cultural priority until relatively recently.

The cultural priority in the 1950s was to not be thin.

I wear a fitbit. Tuesday I was home sick from work, and all I did was move a little bit to grap a soda, use the bathroom, etc. Even so I went over 1k steps.

> in our western lives

Which western lives?

> Unless you live without a car, there is no requirement

Requirement? Choice. That's what counts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com