News via Statistics Canada that Canadians are fatter, slower and weaker than we were a generation ago is no surprise. The unfortunate writer of this editorial has duplicated this process exactly.
But why look back only 28 years? What were we like 20,000 years ago?
Recently an anthropologist answered that question. He studied the 20,000 year-old footprints left by a hunter in Australia and found, though he was running through ankle-deep mud, that he was going almost as fast as Usain Bolt and still accelerating! Put him on a cinder track and he’d leave Bolt at the starting line. As for muscular strength, the average woman could have beat any modern man arm wrestling, even Arnold Schwarzenegger in his top form.
Maybe it’s evolution, but it appears to be accelerating. Most people fighting the middle-aged spread today were reasonably fit in their teens. The fact that more teens are using the middle-aged spread as a starting point is alarming. What on earth will they look like on the dark side of 40?
Here’s an idea that may seem counterintuitive: let’s get rid of competitive sports. Their emphasis on winning produces great athletes but we all know ordinary people who were sidelined in the process and left to languish over their computer games with a bag of potato chips.
Let’s re-evaluate high school sports and physical education training. Fitness is too precious to waste on athletes.
