Work out more? If we women did, the nation would grind to a halt
Nearly half of British women over 40 are putting their health at risk by not getting enough exercise. If you read that – the finding of a new study by the World Health Organisation – and immediately wondered, “Oh dear, how can that be?”, then I’ll bet my unused gym membership that you have yet to celebrate your own 40th or that you are a man.
I don’t know any woman the wrong side of 40 who gets anything like the amount of exercise she knows her body needs. Because here’s the thing: it’s not that we’re a bunch of lazy, flabby-gluted slobs who can’t be bothered to join a gym class or go for a jog. We’re just so busy running ourselves ragged (metaphorically, of course) working, raising kids, managing the home – and swallowing our resentment when our husbands cycle off on a sunny Saturday morning leaving us scrubbing the bath.
According to the Office for National Statistics, British women still do 60 per cent more unpaid work (from laundry to childcare and caring for older relatives) than men. Half an hour on any treadmill other than the one life’s planted us on feels like a luxury we can’t afford.
Yes, I know – I’m ranting. But telling a woman, whatever her age, that she could do with adding yet another thing to an already burgeoning to-do list isn’t good for anyone’s health.
Most women would love to do more exercise if they could, and certainly don’t need to be walked through its myriad benefits for physical and mental health.
But it tends to be something we get round to only when everything else has been done. Meddle with that mindset if you dare, because the day we change tack and make working out a priority is the day that life, as everyone else enjoys it, comes to a horrible end.
The nation’s schools would immediately be awash with weeping children forced to wear PE kits cobbled together out of the lost property box – their mothers having been too busy doing Zumba to wash, dry and pack it for them.
Each morning you’d find husbands wandering aimlessly around their bedrooms, naked from the waist down, calling out, “Darling, I don’t seem to have any underwear” – their wives now starting the day with a Pilates class.
Meanwhile, industry would come to a grinding halt, with swathes of the workforce resigning, citing their sudden determination to enjoy a better work/life balance as the reason.
You might even find the courts clogged up with cases similar to the one that took place at Oxford magistrates’ court earlier this week, when a woman took revenge on her ex’s alleged infidelity by pouring bleach into his tank of ornamental fish. Tipped over the edge, having been left alone to look after five children under 10, she filmed the crime and sent him the footage. On it she says: “If I can’t have hobbies or a life, you can’t have them either.”
Though I could never condone this sort of behaviour, I won’t pretend I haven’t occasionally felt the urge to slash my husband’s bike tyres when he’s left me holding (and cleaning) the fort yet again, while he cheerfully pedals off into the sunset without so much as a backward wave.
Next time you spot a woman of a certain age looking less toned and a bit heavier than you suspect her health can afford, don’t for a moment think that it’s because she’s lazy. I can assure you, she’s anything but.