How NOT to get people to exercise
A lot of well-meaning bodies and individuals are getting it very wrong. Let’s see if I’m one of them
If you were an alien and you rocked up in Catford, nicked my phone and scrolled Instagram, you would get the impression that we are a very active nation. I am fed screen after screen of running memes, Reels featuring people of all body types heroically training for marathons and helpful strength training tips from charming middle-aged women dripping in Sweaty Betty.
The alien would go away feeling so inspired by this active, endorphin-drunk country we live in that they would soon be signing up as Event Director for the first intergalactic parkrun.
The reality is, of course, very different. For the past decade or more, there has been major panic about exercise levels, particularly when it comes to British children who are, according to data from Sport England, the least active in the world.
It’s a problem that needs to be tackled because, I don’t know if you’ve heard, exercise is really good for you! But it’s a problem that’s hard to tackle because often, those of us who inhabit an exercise-dominated bubble, are unable to say anything other than “BE MORE LIKE ME! IT’S GOOD FOR YOU!”. Yep, ironically, the ways that very active people try to get less active people to exercise are pretty bloody lazy.
Let’s deconstruct their methods…
Urge them
“Urge” is a popular word in news headlines. It sounds strong — urgent, in fact — and doesn’t take up too much space on the page. A quick google shows it appearing in multiple headlines from the past few days alone from “Police urge people to avoid UK’s most popular Bonfire Night over serious concerns” (ooh, sounds fun, where is it? Let’s go, I’ll bring sparklers!) to “Do it for your country: Chinese officials urge women to get pregnant” (thanks for the helpful suggestion but I’m kind of busy right now).
News about how inactive we are and how it’s putting a strain on our economy/hearts/ankles often comes with a whole load of URGING. But faceless bodies or institutions telling individuals to do something to help solve their problems just doesn’t work, it makes even the most people-pleasing teacher’s pet want to stick it to the man. Basically, what I’m saying is: SUBSTACK WRITER URGES SPORTING BODIES TO URGENTLY QUIT URGING.
Scare them
A nice fitness account I follow on Instagram shared a quote the other day, apparently from some doctor, that is undoubtedly well-meaning, but made me feel very uncomfortable. It was about “future-proofing your body” and read, “The heart attack at 50 began at 30, the loss of independence at 80 began at 30… the aging you want tomorrow begins with the choices you make today.” My reaction? Aaargh, I didn’t exercise until I was nearly 40! I left it too late! I might as well not bother! It’s true that if I could get my hands on a time machine (maybe that alien who mugged me earlier could help?) I would have started running in my twenties, but ultimately saying stuff like that is pretty pointless, since it mostly just inspires a smug nod from the people who are already diligently doing their burpees.
If you saw that quote as a sedentary 50 year old, you’re just going to think “oh, I’m fucked then, anything good on Netflix?”. The reality is, getting more active at any age has huge benefits. It’s just that the younger you get into it, the more likely it is to stick. And herein lies the problem: often the people working in the sport and fitness industry have been sporty FOREVER. They can’t truly relate to being any other way.
Patronise them
Most people know that the least active, least healthy people tend to be the poorest in the most deprived areas. But this does not mean that they are stupid. Chances are, they too have heard on the grapevine that exercise is good for you, they just have extra barriers that make it really hard for them to incorporate it into their lives.
Once again, the trouble is, large corporations, government bodies, people “in” sport, don’t often actually talk to normal people who didn’t go to Loughborough University, at least not individually. Doing a survey and releasing the results to remind people how inactive they are and how bad that is does not count as actively communicating with them.
Similarly: Tell them how fat they are
Most people who are fat know that they are fat and so talking about an “obesity crisis” that they are apparently in the thick of is not helpful. Plus, you can be fat and active, and while people who are overweight are more likely to be less active, there are also plenty of thinner people hiding in plain sight who are also not exercising much.
Exclusively targeting people with a high BMI is a bit lazy, hence the recent outcry about potentially prescribing Ozempic to the unemployed. Plus, when it comes to weight loss (as opposed to weight management), diet often has a much bigger role to play than exercise.
It’s true that when you become more active, it often encourages you to eat more healthily, too, as part of an overall lifestyle shift, but it’s also really, really hard to get active when you are overweight, due to a whole barrage of factors including but not limited to: lack of decent, affordable activewear for bigger bodies, the intimidating vibe of some fitness spaces and professionals, and the fact that some twats like to shout “keep it up fatty!” at a totally ordinary woman going for a run.
Divide them into camps
This one is tricky because it’s easier to put numbers on these things ie. by classifying the people who get less than 150 minutes of exercise a week as “inactive”. But for someone who does 0 minutes of exercise, 150 sounds like an absolute shit ton. That person could feel really proud of managing 20 minutes of weights or a brisk 40 minute walk and then find out they are still considered to be firmly in the lazy AF category.
We don’t celebrate the small stuff enough but, to form good habits, we really need to try and focus on the incremental wins, or it’s all just too overwhelming and impossible. There are apps that are good for this for various things; for instance, I was using Try Dry for a while to be more (buzzword coming in 3, 2, 1…) MINDFUL about my drinking. You log the booze-free days, and get rewarded for sober streaks and stuff. Of course, there are lots of fitness and diet apps that do similar, but it doesn’t feel like any have completely nailed this, especially as the people using, say, Garmin or Strava tend to be pretty active in the first place.
Make it about “sport”
I consciously exercise five or six days a week, with a mixture of running and strength training, but do I call it sport, love sport or identify as sporty? Absolutely not. Sport sounds hard, organised, competitive, kind of expensive and intimidating. It also, rightly or wrongly, feels quite masculine. When I hear “sport” I get the Grandstand theme tune and Des Lynam’s moustache in my head and I’m sorry if you do now too.
The trouble is, words like “movement” are a bit wishy-washy, so what’s the solution? Perhaps it’s being specific about stating the activities we do and don’t enjoy and lumping anything “sporty” in with all of our other interests to create a picture of who we are: I’m Isabel and I like running, karaoke, smart American women’s fiction, chocolate, strength classes, romcoms, cats, slightly morose indie music and mindlessly scrolling social media way past my bedtime.
Force them
This is a tricky one, because giving kids PE lessons at school is, obviously, “forcing” them to exercise and I’m not about to say we should cancel PE even though I hated it with a burning passion and regularly went home crying after a particularly humiliating gymnastics session. I now understand that PE is super-important, not just because it gets kids active, but because it also celebrates the achievements of kids who are good at it and potentially even spurs them on to become professional athletes, or at least people who continue to play football or do dance regularly into adulthood.
While my experience of PE was miserable, I understand that for the kids who were naturally athletically gifted but who didn’t necessarily shine academically, it was crucial for their self-esteem and sense of belonging. The issue is, how do you make school sports an enjoyable or at least tolerable experience for both groups?
A good start would be for PE teachers to not single kids out for being “chubby”, like mine did, but otherwise, it’s surely about exposing them to a wider range of activities that aren’t necessarily competitive, painful and embarrassing, perhaps even by bringing in role models from outside the school, like a body-positive PT or a running coach who has transformed their mental health.
Tell them they do have time actually
According to mucho research, the number one reason people cite for not exercising regularly is not having time. This reason is, in fact, bollocks. But it’s not that people are lying, it’s just that they don’t sufficiently enjoy exercise enough to prioritise it, because they haven’t found their thing. Saying things like “you have the same number of hours in the day as Beyonce!” is technically true but deeply unhelpful. In the past, even before I had kids, I definitely said I didn’t have time to exercise, but the issue was actually that I hated it, so of course I wasn’t going to prioritise it over work, social events or a lie-in.
These days, to run or go to a strength class, I often get up early to do it before work or family commitments, or (because I am freelance and work flexibly) do it when I might otherwise be having lunch (I then eat a terrible toastie at my desk while typing with one hand). This would have been unthinkable to pre-exercise me; in fact I vividly remember taking the piss out of my old work friend who went to an F45 class at lunch instead of coming to the pub.
I know a lot of fit alpha type men who block out time chunks in their public work calendar and state clearly that they’re going for a run or to the gym, but I don’t know many women who do this because they’re too busy being apologetic in an “oh I need to leave seven minutes early today because Lola’s got a doctor’s appointment” sort of way. Taking ownership of the fact that we need exercise, for our physical and mental health, would be a start. Plus, when I don’t sit down to work until 10am because I went for a run straight from school drop-off, I am a million times more productive.
Basically, if it’s important to you, you will find a way to fit it in. But to do this, you’re going to need to find a form of exercise you actually enjoy. My starting point for this is thinking about your personality and the environments that you feel comfortable in. If you like being outdoors, then running could be for you, even though it is, for everyone, no matter how fit they are, painful to start with. If you’re more about the home comforts, feel self-conscious exercising in public or just think other people are gross, YouTube workouts on the telly or a Peloton might be more your jam. If you love music and want to make friends, a high-energy gym class could be just the thing. If you want to feel immersed in your community and maybe even give something back, you could try my beloved parkrun or something like Good Gym, where people run, cycle or walk to help with community projects. You don’t have to make exercise your entire personality — leave that to me! — but finding something that complements who you already are and how you like to live your life is crucial for habit-forming.
Make it about money
Getting more people active could save billions for the economy, they cry. Sounds great, but on an individual level, do I fucking care? Will I see that money in my pocket? No. Fix the problem first, and celebrate any economic benefits afterwards, otherwise it’s all a bit too abstract.
Bring out the sporty people
Olympians need something to do while they’re twiddling their thumbs/javelins between tournaments, I get that. So, naturally, they often become ambassadors for stuff. This absolutely has its place but someone who’s been swimming twice a day since birth is not super-relatable to the average “inactive” member of the public. And yet time and time again, the powers-that-be tap up professional athletes and former Olympians to try and impress and inspire the nation. Impressed? Yes. Inspired? Not so much. They have about as much in common with the average Brit as I do with that alien I keep bringing up to try and form a coherent narrative.
This is where influencers can shine, no matter how much you hate the concept. Seeing someone a little more average using their personality just as much as their abs to sell a concept is pretty powerful, especially as they usually show as well as tell.
Joe Wicks is the ultimate example of this. Yes, he’s fit AF in every sense of the word, but he’s also human. In the same way that Handy Andy was good at getting people to build their own shabby chic radiator cover with some cheap MDF and Jamie Oliver was good at getting people to bish-bash-bosh some chicken around a bit, he’s got that cheeky chappy thing nailed. Women fancy cheeky chappies, and men are annoyed that their wives fancy them and take an “if this idiot can do it then so can I” view, despite these men being major talents in their respective fields who just happen to have moderate regional accents. When these sorts of guys use their skills for good, like getting kids to do “PE with Joe” throughout the pandemic, the results can be very powerful. We need more role models like this coming out of Instagram and TikTok and into the mainstream.
If any of this feels negative it’s because I don’t have the answers. Ultimately, what works for the individual is, well, individual. For me, it was a combination of circumstance — the pandemic ripping apart my normal schedule and making me desperate to get out of the house — and some sort of weird, possibly hormonal, urge to do something for myself after kids and while grappling with early perimenopause rage.
But that was just what got me out of the door the first few times. To form habits that have now been going strong for four and a half years and counting, there have been some key players, both in terms of individuals and communities, and now, perhaps most significantly, the few thousand people who read this newsletter and make me feel accountable!
Crucially, it wasn’t about anybody ordering me to do something because otherwise I would screw up my life and possibly the economy. It was about making myself feel good, not being made to feel bad.