Experts now realise that for many of us what is missing from our lives is the kind of incidental activity that one used to take for granted – performing household chores, pram pushing, stair-climbing – indeed just moving – the lack of which is having a more profound effect on our waistlines & health than any failure to attend the gym.
So The Times advised us yesterday.
Future historians of medicine & science my have a fine time working out how scientists & others were so long obsessed with the need for exercise as sport.
In part it stems from what is both the strength & a drawback of ‘science’ or rather the scientific method: the need to isolate one particular factor & to eliminate confounders or interactive terms, any other thing which may affect our search for underlying universal ‘laws.’ To work with phenomena– inputs & outcomes - which can be measured reliably & in a controlled way, one which does not depend upon who is doing the measuring.
It is a kind of paradox that, although we know real life just is not like that, that it is messy & in constant flux, with nothing fixed, we could make no scientific progress without behaving as if some things can be ‘fixed’ – one at a time.
A slow process.
One which extends over more than the lifespan of one generation of humans.
So what are we supposed to do while we are waiting for The Truth to emerge?
Keep calm & carry on.
