21 September 2017
Getting Fit From Your Armchair
Science marches on.
By Chin Chin
A bit queasy after overindulgence on the family holiday? A little worried that the fatigue could eventually turn into diabetes? Depressed at the thought of going to the gym to restore yourself to a healthy weight? Well, chaps, worry no longer. Research being presented by the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Lisbon demonstrates that whether or not you contract the disease depends on the health of your wife. Apparently the risk increases by 21% for every five-point increase in your wife’s body mass index regardless of what your own may be.
That’s it, then. Problem solved! If your wife goes to the gym you will be healthier and the possibility of contracting diabetes will be reduced. Right, back to the sofa, out with the deep-fried Mars bars. Start reviewing the websites of local gyms whose membership could be your wife’s next Christmas present.
Unfortunately, however, there may be practical difficulties. Not every wife likes receiving a gym membership for Christmas. It suggests, you see, that you might not think that she is the ideal shape. Of course you will know that that isn’t the point at all. The purpose of the gift is to improve your own health not hers but to explain that could make the gift seem self-serving and less generous. Also it could lead to some difficult conversations as you try to match her training schedule against your own overindulgence. Somehow I am not sure that “Hello darling. Please could you do an extra five minutes on the rowing machine as I had two extra beers at lunchtime” will go down particularly well.
Hmm. What about the children then? Could you improve your health by sending them out for an hour’s stiff walk every day? It certainly seems worth a try. If nothing else, getting them to turn off the television and out of the house for a bit would probably reduce your blood pressure; but maybe the research from the EASD means that it goes further than that. Perhaps their additional exercise will improve your health generally.
Something like this was tried in the early Middle Ages. When a young prince misbehaved, his tutors were not of sufficient rank to inflict physical punishment on him. What to do? If you spared the rod you would spoil the child and tutors are engaged to improve princes rather than spoil them. Anyway, not to react when some little tyke had put spiders in your armour would stretch self-control to breaking point. Answer? The whipping boy. That was another child of about the same age who could be whipped instead of the prince. Result: the rod had not been spared and the affronted party could assuage his anger by physical chastisement. Probably it was not too good a job being a whipping boy if the prince whose punishments you took did not like you, but no doubt it was character building.
Sending your children out on runs to compensate for your own overeating is an obvious development of this theme but alas there are practical problems. Although the law allows you to beat children in a proportionate way, it is not clear that that includes beating them for not taking exercise to improve your own health. Perhaps, then, it had better be pets. It is common knowledge that people begin to resemble their dogs so if you acquire one that loves exercise you should be able to work off the pounds by watching it run. All you need is a bird-shaped drone and a spaniel or retriever will run all day without you having to do more than move the controls. Yes, clearly we should ask the EASD to rerun their research by reference to dogs.
All this may be making you nervous. What if it was to work the other way round so that your wife’s vulnerability to diabetes or indeed her figure depended on how much exercise as you took? That wouldn’t be much fun. Imagine her coming back from shopping surrounded by baskets:
“Well darling, I bought them all a size smaller because I knew you wouldn’t mind running an extra mile a day so that I can get into them by Christmas.”
That wouldn’t be so good but luckily there is no chance of it happening. The research shows that although your wife’s body mass index may affect your health there is no evidence that it works the other way round. This should actually come as no surprise. If you each affected the other then a little exercise by one of you would create a virtuous cycle of increasing fitness even though you both retreated to your armchairs. That would break that law of physics which begins “If it seems too good to be true…”
Actually the whole thing sounds rather experimental so perhaps you should go for a more traditional solution. Begin with a large portrait of yourself hanging in the attic…
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