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"Why don't we teach effective exercise, sports, and fitness in schools?" We do. It's called gym. Um no, and that's part of the problem. In my experience, gym
by varelse 13y ago
"Why don't we teach effective exercise, sports, and fitness in schools?" We do. It's called gym.
Um no, and that's part of the problem. In my experience, gym class was a Hunger Games like spectacle for the athletically (but not otherwise) gifted to enjoy their brief decade in the sun at the expense of those who will peak much later in life (but of course, they're more likely to be sedentary in part because of such a negative early impression of physical activity). Evidence? Do I need to mention anything else beyond Shirts vs. Skins Battle Ball? What kind of %$*!ing psychotic thought this sounded like a good idea at the time?
"Why don't we align our medical system with prevention instead of expensive and risky cures?" That's a good question, actually.
No money in it for big pharma, a segment increasingly under attack from the FDA for many of its practices and for which many critical drugs are facing patent expiration. So now they're trying to play good guy by increasingly focusing on orphan diseases ($10K to $500K/year per patient) where if someone blocks a promising therapy, its entire population of victims is doomed. And since these are the long-tail, it also creates an effective barrier to entry for smaller competitors.
- normloman 13y agoI'm sorry your gym experience was so terrible. Mine wasn't great either. That said, the poor state of gym now is no reason to eliminate it all together. We need to reform it.
- varelse 13y agoAbsolutely, an ex-girlfriend knocked some sense into me in my early 20s and I've been in great shape ever since. There's probably a fantastic company in doing exactly what you propose and I'd love to be a part of it. But a lot of tenured gym teachers I've met as an adult are the same people who were tormentor jocks in their childhood. So I've never moved further on it. How do you propose reforming it with people like that blocking the way? Because I think America needs an intervention, Europe isn't far behind, and Asia is doing its level best to catch up right now. There were a bunch of absolutely awesome ads in the subways of Hong Kong last year that showed a woman's flabby mid-section with a timebomb strapped to it. Contrast this with last week's Facebook kerfuffle between Maria Kang and Curvy Girl which demonstrated (to me) that anything but the most vanilla criticism of this situation in the US is apparently hate speech. Gag me.