Why Do We Have Socialized Healthcare Without Socialized Fitness?

The past year has shown the vulnerability of our society being so unhealthy.

The idea that we should pay for the healthcare of others is widely supported across Canada.

After all, in countries without public healthcare systems, we often see that costs are higher anyway, due to people foregoing care until their situation becomes desperate, and the high healthcare premiums people pay in a system like the US has.

However, the question of socialized healthcare raises the question of socialized fitness.

While that may sound absurd, consider that we just spent the past year locking down our entire population for a virus that was most dangerous to those who are elderly and obese, without politicians pushing for any change in physical fitness at all.

“If they wanted to save lives, they would make everyone step on a scale before work every day & lower the obesity rate with mandatory work outs. That would have bigger results than lockdowns.

But a fat, stupid, brainwashed, addicted-to-pills population makes way more money.”

How odd is it that the government has the power to destroy tens of thousands of businesses, order us locked in our homes, tell us not to gather with people even outside, but has nothing to say about physical fitness and even discourages it by shutting down gyms?

We have socialized healthcare, we had socialized lockdowns, and we had the socialized destruction of businesses, yet no socialized fitness?

It gets even more odd when you consider that a healthy population would dramatically reduce healthcare costs, reduce the cost of an aging population by keeping people healthier as they age, and would boost GDP through increases in productivity and mental health.

Yet, throughout the entire pandemic, the government took ZERO steps to improve our physical fitness, and imposed policies that made it worse.

The fact is, if the government expects us all to pay for healthcare, and if they expect us to shut down our economy to protect those who are unhealthy or at further risk, it is very strange that they don’t expect people to be physically fit.

And this could easily be done without coercion.

Why not have the government pay for gym memberships?

Why not subsidize the fitness industry?

Why not build more public parks that feature workout facilities?

Why not put a huge emphasis on physical fitness in schools (school should be 50/50 exercise and knowledge expansion)?

Why not give tax incentives for people who prioritize their fitness?

Yes, this is all government intervention, but if we’ve accepted that the government intervenes to make us all pay for healthcare, why not push for a healthier and fitter population?

Of course, government would prefer us to be unhealthy, because an unhealthy population is easier to control.

But at some point, we will need to realize that a society becoming fatter and fatter isn’t sustainable, and we’ll need to have a country of stronger and fitter individuals to achieve our true potential.

Spencer Fernando

Image by Maciej Cieslak from Pixabay