Albrecht: Skipping the Gym
Why is it assumed that everyone has to conform to the same expectations of fitness and that failing to do shows a lack of character?
By Emily Albrecht, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Wednesday, February 20, 2013
The message is everywhere. In magazines, glossy pages show muscular men lifting weights and toned women happily trotting on the treadmill. Online ads give advice on how to tighten those abs at the gym and which sets to do. It all revolves around one central idea: people need to work out to be worthy of attention and those who do not should feel ashamed.
Dartmouth women sit in circles at lunch, bemoaning the FoCo cookies now in their stomach or grabbing bland salads because they have been “bad.” They compare who has worked out this week and who has not, with the former coming out prideful winners and the latter feeling lazy and worthless.
These women (and men, though the phenomenon is less common among them) are often healthy young adults who otherwise feel fine about the way their lives are going. But regardless of workload, schedule or most importantly, personal interest, the consensus is that everyone should go to the gym a few times a week.
Why is it assumed that everyone has to conform to the same expectations of fitness and that failing to do shows a lack of character? Exercise comes in different forms, which should primarily serve and concern the individual involved. Personal health can be achieved by taking walks, ice skating, playing “Dance Central,” throwing a Frisbee — believe it or not, physical fitness exists outside of timed runs and hellish Stairmasters.
We all knowingly do things that are not conducive to a “healthy” lifestyle. Smoking and drinking are not advantageous to lasting health, no matter what one may hope. Why are these socially acceptable, but skipping the gym is not, when the former is more detrimental? Though public health is a factor here, there is a difference between encouraging obese children to eat apples and play outside on the one hand, and fat-shaming students of average weight on the other. Some physical activity is necessary; running marathons is not.
Dartmouth especially falls prey to destructive assumptions of physical conformity. Everywhere you look, you see someone coming back from sports practice or mowing pedestrians down on their morning jog. Everyone on campus appears to be physically fit. Little wonder, at a school where the outing club boasts one of the largest extracurricular memberships.
Athletes, of course, can be reasonably expected to exercise deeply and often. But their participation suggests a passion, or at least an affinity, for such activity. They play their sport because they genuinely want to; thus, this column is not about them. This is about the people who wake up distraught because they “have” to go on their morning jog and who shame others into doing the same.
If you do not want to exercise, that is okay. Do not let others shame you into feeling guilty for it, because such activities are not anyone else’s concern. It is no one’s business whether someone else is going to the gym. If somebody abhors going on a run, or riding a bike, or lifting weights or dancing, that is absolutely fine. People should not be made to feel worthless because they do not participate in something that they hate. Regular, narrowly defined exercise is not a mandatory element of life. It is entirely possible to do great things without holding a gym membership or running for miles in the snow.
The problem does not lie only with those who judge others, but also with those who judge themselves. In fact, the first step has to be self-respect. Individuals need to realize that others’ opinions of their exercise habits simply do not matter. Appraising others’ exercise habits is a problem for the person judging, not the person being judged.
Once you internalize this kind of respect, it favorably affects how you see others. When you stop beating yourself up about not going to the gym, you stop beating up others for the same. If the gospel of gym worship is ignored, people can actually spend their time doing things that truly make them happy.
CHECK IT.
By THIN PRIVILEGE on Feb 20 | 10:16 am
I see where this piece is going and largely agree with the message; no one should feel pressured to go to the gym to the point of their discomfort; nor should one feel that they have to comply with these activities endlessly to the point that they develop an eating disorder.
At the same time, however, there are a few other things going on. Dartmouth has, overall, a pretty in-shape and active student population, and so those who are inactive may feel more pressure toward being active, losing weight, getting in shape etc. I think largely this is OK. There has been a real push back lately in defense of some overweight people.
While I would never deride someone for their weight, and understand that everyone has their own metabolic profile, individual issues, etc, I think it is also unreasonable to bar people from passing judgement on overweight people. Follow some of them around in the supermarket and you’ll see what the majority of them buy. If we were in cave man times we’d all be getting much more exercise than we currently do.
By Anon on Feb 20 | 11:46 am
This article comes from the right perspective, in that being obsessed about one’s health during the day and playing 6 games of pong at night is absurd, but your rhetoric is a bit misleading. This article and a “fat pride rally” have a little too much in common for me. Watch out for that next time you write an article.
By Anonymous on Feb 20 | 12:05 pm
This doesn’t sound at all like a a “fat pride rally” it sounds like what it is: an article saying do whatever you want to do and let everyone else do whatever they want to do as long as they’re not hurting anyone. i think that if more people had her opinion the world would be a more accepting place where young girls aren’t pressured to have whatever type of body is in style at the time.
By but actually on Feb 20 | 4:10 pm
This article hits on all the right notes. Don’t be ashamed of who you are or what you look like.
By Anon on Feb 20 | 5:04 pm
This campus does have a problem with Thin Privilege. We as a campus need to look at the ways in which the thin have oppressed the fat. Sometimes it is longer lines at pong tables for heavier girls, other times being forced to get off the sidewalk when someone runs by, or being glared at in foco.
We have a thin privilege problem at Dartmouth and it must be addressed.
By Kim 16 on Feb 20 | 5:20 pm
I wish this explored the fitness issue with men, which I believe is a huge issue on campus given the prevalence of athletics and growing trends of male anorexia as well as “bigorexia.”
By J on Feb 20 | 5:43 pm
I really appreciate this article, Emily! Let’s be friends and go on a nice walk around Occom and then…get gelato!
Accepting who I am and what I like has been so hard for me at Dartmouth. I feel that there is a huge pressure to conform, and you’ve captured a large part of it here.
I hate sweating but I’m still an active person….don’t judge me.
By A friend on Feb 20 | 5:46 pm
A well-thought piece all-in-all. I would go a step further and say that actually the destructive habits of drinking and smoking also stem from a lack of self-respect, and that indeed the average Dartmouth student does not have an adequate appraisal of his/herself. It seems to be an odd blend of thinking far too highly, that each person should be above average (a statistical anomaly) and that at present, each of us is below average (similarly statistically untenable). I think in general this inability to appraise the self leads to the majority of social conflicts here.
By Jacob on Feb 20 | 5:55 pm
I love how these are the same people that want free health care. Live how you want and make others pay for it!
By Anonymous on Feb 21 | 1:15 am
This piece is quite poorly-thought-out, as I have come to expect from the D. The author seems to mistake social pressure to look a certain way or be healthy (which exists) with irrational pressure to exercise for no reason (which doesn’t exist). The former issue has been explored a bunch already, so perhaps the author dreamed up the second for a new angle.
The article’s main point is to criticize the the “people who wake up distraught because they ‘have’ to go on their morning jog”. The author seems to think that a lot of these people do demanding exercise that they don’t enjoy just because it’s cool to do stairmasters or lift weights. Just who in the heck does she think these people are? People do stairmasters rather than take a walk around Occom because they lose more pounds doing so. And people lift weights rather than throw a frisbee because it makes their muscles bigger and more toned.
The real social pressure is to look a certain way, an issue we’ve explored and should continue to explore. If you don’t exercise, nobody really cares. If you look overweight, then people care. When people pressure each other to run, they are really pressuring each other to be thinner. When people pressure each other to lift weights, they are really pressuring each other to look more muscular. This article absurdly misses the real issue in order to get a new spin.
I’ll give the author props for one interesting point, the fact that students fanatically exercise during the day while damaging their health by drinking excessively the same night. An article about that cognitive dissonance could be great but whoever writes it PLEASE write it thoughtfully…these opinion authors are cutting to the heart of issues like a butter knife cuts through diamond.
By NDL ‘14 on Feb 21 | 2:25 pm
Look at this argument as smart versus dumb instead of thin versus fat. Dartmouth accepts smart people.What if a college only accepted fat people? What kind of article would be reading in their paper?
By Anonymous on Feb 21 | 8:10 pm
yo emily, get your ass to the gym.
By ag on Feb 25 | 7:10 am
yo ag, shut up. what you’re crying about your freedom of speech?! well emily has a right to not go to the gym if she doesn’t want to either. stop. you are what is wrong with this society.
By slap you through the screen on Mar 2 | 9:26 pm