Gyms not good for the body or the public purse

I was wandering down Wellington’s Taranaki St, arguably one of New Zealand’s ugliest streets because of its unattractive buildings and traffic snarl-ups.

There are a couple of gyms situated on that road, one in particular which flaunts its vigorous physical activities on the footpath as its members rush past you in sprints that leave them puffed and puce-faced.

I know that virtue has its own reward but I wonder about the wisdom of such sudden, violent physical activity. Recent statistics have revealed there has been a significant increase in the number of ACC claims for injuries sustained while at the gym and during fitness training.

Apparently one in seven Kiwis are forking out money to belong to a gymnasium, swelling the coffers of a fitness industry now worth around $500 million a year and growing at about 6.5 per cent a year.

And the number of ACC claims for injuries incurred while worshiping at the fitness altar has doubled in the last five years. In the year to June 2017, more than 51,000 people were injured in gyms or during fitness training, compared to five years ago when only 24,000 people were injured.

So going to the gym is a highrisk hobby. The number of injuries is nearly as great as those incurred by the full-body contact sport of those playing rugby union, which, in the same year, resulted in 55,000 new ACC claims at a cost of $78.6m.

One imagines a future of not only retired rugger players hobbling painfully to the corner dairy to buy a pint of milk, but their wincing rank being joined by those who thought they were doing themselves a favour by going to the gym.

If sports stadiums are the new cathedrals, then perhaps gymnasiums are the parish churches.

At the former, one gathers to marvel at the sporting greats going at it pitted against each other, while at the latter, the inspired masses strain themselves to look as good as the sporting gods.

Unfortunately, gymnasiums don’t have stained glass windows, altar flowers or incense. It’s bleak inside a church gym.

The aesthetics of boot camp require only the basics – grotesque state-of-the-art equipment that produces an odour of human sweat combined with supermarket-shelf unguents, all played out against a constant background of barf inducing music and towering TV screens.

It’s low church, but there are plenty of high priests and priestesses administering to the sweaty flock. Some have qualifications to serve, while others rise up through the ranks through blood, sweat and muscle tears, and were blessed with being born to look the body perfect part.

And if the flock progresses from emitting exhausted animal grunts to verbal communication, this low church has a community where you might get to hook up with a mate, or a series of mates.

All light-hearted conjecture aside, why should ACC have to cough up for gym and sporting injuries? Perhaps gym memberships should also come with insurance for physical harm incurred while fitness training.

It seems mad that these chosen activities receive state funding, while family caregivers of severely disabled relatives can’t extract a

It's low church, but there are plenty of high priests and priestesses administering to the sweaty flock.

decent wage from the Ministry of Health.

Good on the Court of Appeal for ordering the ministry to reconsider the limited funding it’s been giving 71-year-old Diane Moody, who cares for her 51-yearold severely intellectually disabled son.

Moody’s son, Shane Chamberlain, is also partially paralysed and has the genetic disorder Williams Syndrome, which has manifested in lifelong heart and lung problems.

Moody has been getting paid only 17 hours a week on minimum wage, when she says she works nearly 10 times that a week.

Moody’s lawyer, Paul Dale, says he has been told that there are 240 other families in a similar situation. Surely these families are saving the state a considerable sum?

They are living lives which are forever on duty by looking after their children in their own homes, and they deserve to be paid for at least a 40-hour week.

Surely that’s only fair and decent.

Let’s get our priorities right.