He's got it, baby, he's got it!
Competition has no doubt taken humankind to new heights. The incentive to be better than the others has frequently resulted in improvements that have revolutionized our quality of life. It isn’t the answer to all of our problems, however, and when it comes to our individual state of health I’m ready to argue that the increasingly dogged devotion to the mentality of competition in our society is becoming a problem. Just switch on your television and feel your spirits being crimped.
As I had just returned from my morning sweat with Lucy the dog on the well-raked paths of Drottningholm Park, my husband lay snugly in bed watching the morning news programme, the hand with the remote control having been the most active part of his body this morning (why can’t I learn to relax?). In the interview couch were some researchers and other social commentators who debated the findings of an earth-shattering new study from Karolinska Institute that suggests young Swedish men are less physically active than their American counterparts. The reverse was true for women and pensioners, both of whom were apparently more active on the Swedish side (why do I believe that?). Swedes were shocked. How could this be? To my mind, the most compelling explanation for this is that organized competitive sport serves a special function in American society. In America, winning at sport can mean paying for a college education. The question no one seems to ask is what happens after college when that incentive falls away? It isn’t for nothing that Mrs. Obama is finally putting what we’ve all been thinking into words: America’s extra weight has become a threat to its national security. The real issue is, how do we get people to be active for life?
My thoughts are with the pensioners. They’re up at eight encouraging one another to take the next step in groups. The value of motion in the outdoors is self-evident to these seventy, eighty and even ninety-year-olds. Getting a move-on in nature is a practice that has frequently been nurtured from an early age in a culture which is unique in the world for having a term for free time non-competitive outdoor life (what a mouthful), “friluftsliv”. One interviewed pensioner is asked why he thinks this sort of activity is a good idea. He smiles and simply answers, “isn’t that self-evident?”
Later in the day I was on the telephone with one of the Nordic region’s leading free-time non-competitive outdoor life experts (check books by Klas Sandell). “Do we really have to organize all sorts of competitive incentives to attract our boys to be physically active?” I asked. After all, this sort of thing doesn’t come close to having the same overall wellbeing value as undirected physical activity in the outdoors. Aren’t we risking deleting widespread voluntary physical activity, particularly for young men, forever? We had to be careful about our objectives of our competitive incentives my expert thought. If they build a bridge to the ultimate objective which is to end up as a healthy pensioner who understands that daily walks are a self-evident dimension of a good quality of life, then fine. But if the ultimate objective in every case is to become a football star, we’ve lost it.
This week I have been enjoying my spanking new copy of “Kärnfrisk Familj“, the story of the Danish Mauritson family that is taking Scandinavia by storm. It presents the fascinating story of the health transformation of a rather average unfit family with all of the usual health symptoms of wrong food and lack of motion – their autistic son was the exception to this averageness. Although there are plenty of images presented in the book of young boys sporting, the main point presented consistently throughout is don’t overdo it, do it together and do it regularly. Our society with its time and space limitations, and eternal competitive pressure has made these qualities difficult to achieve. In my humble opinion, it’s time to refocus.
