The New York Times is currently re-running a December 2016 article outlining the high cost, both physical and financial, of fitness inactivity: Savings, Longevity and the Year in Fitness.
Readers comments are always informative, often distressingly so, and a number of commenters felt the need to detail their justifications for their inactivity, which for some was pain and injury. How many of these have this pain and injury due in the first place to their physical inactivity? That equation eludes these excuse-makers.
I think people should be happy, even if that means sitting on the sofa all day eating snacks. However the line is drawn when these people expect sympathy, or worse, that the cost of their choices becomes a burden for others, whether it be the relatives they live with, or taxpayers in general.
Scant attention is paid to the mental condition of those who go out of their way to self-destruct, then when the piper requires to be paid, demand others step up to rescue them in some way or another.
Writers of articles such as this NYT piece seem bafflingly unaware that the reasons people don’t exercise or eat clean is due to emotional problems, not physical. Overweight is not a physical problem, it’s a mental health issue.
