I don’t understand why this university’s concept of “exercise” was apparently “walk/jog on a treadmill”, or something similarly boring. Even with formal exercise classes, you can be a lot more creative than that. In my current university, there are all sorts of available fitness classes, like yoga, jiu-jitsu, salsa dancing, and of course the standard, less imaginative weight lifting, cardio kickboxing, and swiss ball classes. If there was a mandatory fitness class requirement (like there was in my undergrad college), there is something for almost everyone.

Dance class? I’ve seen kids outside, busting out moves with just their music. Cost? 1 music player from Radio Shack. Am I the only person old enough to remember how breakdancing used to get done? An old piece of cardboard, some kid who can beat box = hours of enjoyment.

Garden? A few shovels, a few seed packs at the outset (then saving seeds). Food scraps from cafeteria for compost. Dirt. Savings? No grass cutting. And the “100 metre diet” can be served in university cafeterias. (This is not imaginary. University of Toronto already does this.) And what the hell, get the biology students out there helping to make sure the plants don’t croak.

Child care? Free labour. Investment in space and infrastructure. Nominal cost to parents. Benefits — students with kids can attend. Savings? Child labour. Hey, those ugly wallets, things with googly eyes, and plastic bracelets ain’t gonna make themselves. :)

Farmers’ market? Cost: A few trestle tables.

Walking trails? Quit mowing the lawn in a few places. Let the people’s natural transit pathways wear the path. Or go to Home Depot and pick up a few bags of wood chips.

Hiking, outdoor stuff? Set up carpooling to the parks. The rest of nature is pretty much free.

Conversely, cost of aerobics, spinning etc.? 50 x spinning bikes. 15 x treadmills. 15 x stair climbers. Energy to power them. Etc. Getting students outside would first of all save energy.

People often cite cost but actually it’s investment. And, the rewards are sometimes monetary but so much more often intangible.

I think the disconnect is happening earlier in the chain. It’s great to criticize the execution of this idea, we can all see the flaws in it, but the fact remains that most people who develop a hate-on for exercise do it way before they reach university. It’s not that it’s too late at that stage to develop good habits, it’s just that if exercise were something that we were always taught to view as fun and exciting, it wouldn’t be necessary for this school to have to take these miscalculated steps in implementing fitness into the lives of their students.

So let’s roll back the Rolodex calendar and figure out where exercise becomes ‘no longer fun’:

- When you don’t get picked first for the teams in gym class.
- When your older sibling mocks you for not being able to keep up… so they always make you It and you never win.
- When your younger sibling joins the same softball league as you and inevitably kicks your ass.
- When that girl who was always better at soccer than you ends up with that boy you always had the biggest crush on, and you think it must be because she scored that winning goal at the game on the weekend and has nothing to do with the fact that she’ll take off her bra for anyone.

None of these are personal experiences, by the way. (LIE!)

Ahem, but my theory is that at some point your efforts in fitness become a negative social experience, and that’s why you shy away from them. There’s hurt and humiliation in not being the best, or not being good, or not being the favourite, and we don’t realize until later that often you weren’t picked first because you weren’t best friends with the person who was picking team.

So, maybe a better approach would be turning exercise into a positive social experience, with physical activity being a by-product, but not the main focus. Sneak-attack fitness, BAM!

Also, gym teachers in grade school should never let kids pick their own teams, it’s just mean.

/end novel.

Or they could give everyone the option of playing one semester of intermural rugby (like I did)…bet you’d have alot of folks hiking. he he.

Thanks for the follow-up :)

Your suggestions are awesome. I totally agree. :)