Thursday, December 01, 2011

You can't just replace screen time with exercise

I was annoyed to wake up yesterday morning to my radio telling me that the Heart and Stroke Foundation thinks we should be exercising when we would normally be watching TV or looking at the internet. As though those two things are anywhere near interchangeable.

Screen time is pleasurable and relaxing; exercise is a chore.

Screen time is multitaskable, conducive to cooking or eating or housework or light reading or more than one kind of screen time at once; exercise requires the full attention of your whole body and entirely too much of your mind.

Screen time is logistically simple - just turn it on and plop down; exercise requires different clothes and a shower afterwards and, depending on your health situation, planning what you do or don't eat before and/or after.

Analogy: suppose I decide that people aren't intaking enough current events and should read more newspapers. When they protest they don't have the time, I say "How much time do you spend driving around in car every day? Why don't you spend that time reading a newspaper instead?"

Not that simple, is it?

This irritated me so much that I skipped exercising yesterday just because I didn't want them to win.

3 comments:

B. Hrebec said...

Okay, not to be too pedantic, but I really feel the need to point out that exercise isn't necessarily a chore: I play tennis, for instance, and love it enough that I do it as much as it's practical to do so. Exercise can definitely be as pleasurable and relaxing as anything else.

That said, still a good point especially regarding the internet - I suspect most of us spend our internet time primary either working or communicating, to which exercise is pretty much orthogonal.

But your example gave me an idea! Maybe exercise should replace car-driving time! (Sorry, my inner bike advocate just escaped...)

impudent strumpet said...

If you find it pleasurable and relaxing then more power to you, but not everyone does. For example, I find it stressful and tedious. And I suspect the people for whom it's already pleasurable and relaxing aren't the target audience of this message, since they'd be exercising anyway.

laura k said...

I sometimes enjoy exercise and sometimes don't. I would very much like to have more time for exercise, but exactly none of my screen time can be exchanged for exercise. It's reductionist to the point of ridiculous. Pisses me off.