Thanks a Lot, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld
It is one of my pet peeves that Thanksgiving, a holiday that is relatively non-commercial (grocery and flower industries notwithstanding) has been co-opted into a shopping holiday, the eve to Black Friday. Workers on the bottom of the economic ladder are denied a nice meal with their families and friends to prep stores for midnight sales events.
I have friends who love Black Friday. They, too, leave Thanksgiving dinner early. They get up so they can be at the mall when stores open (2 AM? 3 AM?). They want to buy gifts for the people they love.
Far be it to condemn another person’s pleasure, but I would rather not.
This has been a year for me to pay attention to those things for which I am grateful, and I’m really grateful that I have a body that works. My father and my husband both slowly lost the reliable use of their legs, so that walking was an ordeal. I try to remember how lucky I am that I can walk without needing a lot of apparatus. I am lucky that I can non-rhythmically shake my wide, flat Jewish ass to music when no one is watching.
So whenI saw this story in The New York Times, I was struck by this quote: “Only 3.5 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 59 do the minimum amount of physical activity recommended by the Department of Health and Human Services: 150 minutes a week of moderate activity. Among those over age 60, the percentage is even lower: 2.5 percent.”
Those are horrific statistics, if correct. Fewer than four percent of Americans get the minimum amount of physical activity to remain healthy. Aside from the monetary cost of our society in terms of medical expenses and absence from work, it’s also hundreds of millions of people who don’t get to enjoy having their bodies.
I can be as much of a sloth as the next person. I curse when the phone rings when I’m settled into my chair and I have to get up and walk two whole steps to pick it up. And yet, when I feel like crap, a walk makes me feel better. When I can’t write, a spell on the elliptical trainer long enough to make me sweat activates my brain cells. No one would mistake me for a marathon runner, but my resting pulse is less than my age. I feel better when I move my (previously mentioned fat, wide Jewish) ass than when I don’t.
For some reason, over the past several years, this has become a political issue, and not just a public health issue. Conservatives love to complain that Michelle Obama is going to ban desert (when, instead, she merely advocates healthy eating). They despise Obamacare, claiming that decent health care is too expensive.
Meanwhile, we have one of the worst health-care system in the developed world (ranked 37th), and we get more and more obese.
Perhaps, this holiday season, when so many of us continue to suffer the effects of the 2008 recession, we should consider other gifts we can give besides stuff. Instead of buying another object for a friend, why not commit to taking a long walk together every Sunday morning? Or buy a couple of exercise DVDs and make a steady date to use them together. You’ll get to enjoy having a friend and having a body at the same time.
Media Goddess Martha Thomases also suggests that, if you have any spare change, consider helping some kids get a chance to enjoy their bodies.
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November 24th, 2012 at 8:14 am
Hooray for walking. It’s my most efficient stimulus for creative ideas.
November 24th, 2012 at 8:22 am
I was always pretty sedentary, and despite my love of sports (and career writing/editing them!) was never too active, except occasionally. But about five years ago, my doctor told me my cholesterol was high and wanted to put me on medication. I figured before that, I’d try it on my own, so I joined a gym and watched eating a little more carefully. After a year, my cholesterol has gone down into acceptable range, I’ve lost close to 35 pounds (slowly, not at once) and my wife says I snore a lot less. Now I don’t know what I’d do without going to the gym during the week, I feel lazy when I miss a day.
November 24th, 2012 at 9:19 am
I know I probably don’t do as much as I should , but I do try to walk at least 5-6 days a week with at least mile each time. I feel better when I do.
November 24th, 2012 at 9:56 am
On line shopping does away with mall and parking lot walking.
“Use it or loose it.” my mother used to say.
November 24th, 2012 at 10:34 am
The key similarity to these comments is that, when you move your body, you feel better. Not (just)virtuous, not (just) sweaty, but better. Even on days when I bitch and moan and procrastinate, I feel better once I get going.
November 24th, 2012 at 3:33 pm
I also remember brisk walks with you and John when visiting NY. Never have had a weight problem.
After I broke my hip, the fact that I have been physically active most of my life contributed to my recovery, ability to walk and drive at the age of 81. The reason being I began playing tennis at age 33 and found I felt wonderful on trips with my husband, and could walk and walk without tiring when sight seeing, shopping, and dancing at the club. It is true. The more you move, the better you feel and enjoy life.
The more you rest, the weaker you become. It is a lesson I am so glad I learned. Now, I get most of my walking done when I shop. I can spend 3 to 4 hours behind a grocery cart and the “dollar” store. It’s true, honest. It’s almost as good as dancing. Not really, but benefit can’t be beat.
I make it a point NOT to shop Black Friday. Did so ONCE when John and Cindy were young. Never again. Learned my lesson to avoid traffic and nasty shoppers. Never forgot the awful experience.
November 24th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
I live in a HUD senior apartment complex where we have a diverse population of Koreans,Hispanics, African Americans etc.The group in the best physical shape are the Koreans. Come rain or come shine, walker/wheelchair, male/female they are out walking een when it is a little too warm or cold.
Many are quite elderly. None are overweight.
Everyone of them greet you with a smile.
November 24th, 2012 at 5:42 pm
Driving home from work one day, I decided to count the number of pizza purveyors between my house and employer–mostly a commercial stretch of about 15 miles. There are 12. Add to that, the burger joints, fast food sandwhich makers, fast food chicken huts and the number jumps to near 30, some with 2-3 locations. Unreal, this cardio-pulmonary wasteland.
November 24th, 2012 at 10:20 pm
Well, then, I guess Black Friday (a stupid name that sounds like a 1970s superhero sidekick) isn’t such a bad idea after all. Minimum-wagers working for the sundry Wal-Marts of this nation have no choice about reporting to work on Thanksgiving or in the midnight hours of Black Friday lest they lose their jobs, but it certainly provides a lot of exercise. And those folks who fight the crowds in order to save some money on largely tacky shit that is our landfill of the future — well, they’re getting exercise as well.
Of course, some people get injured in the feeding frenzy. Fights are rather common. Evidently, about a half-dozen people get killed each year. But, hey, those are the risks you take when you relish in America’s two greatest religious experiences: Christmas and Consumerism.
We don’t need Stan Freberg to tell us what real Christmas values are all about. Now that Santa lost his job selling cigarettes and booze, he’s working at the new car dealerships.
You can do your religious shopping without all that sweaty, needless exercise. Online shopping is 24/7 and bereft of the human interference. And the success of online shopping is one of the driving forces behind these Black Thursday and Black Midnight Friday mob sales.
I kinda like the small business Saturday thing, but really, I’m happy with a doughnut and a great corned beef sammich.
November 25th, 2012 at 8:05 am
It is my opinion that, if chain stores want to be open on Thanksgiving or early on Black Friday, it is the executives who should give up their holidays and work the registers. They are the ones who will get the bonuses, not the minimum wage workers they exploit.
Charging through doors for sales may get the heart pumping, but it’s hardly the kind of exercise that does one’s body good. Too much stress, and too short intervals. A leisurely walk around the mall before things open (as many walking groups enjoy) is much better on the quality-of-life scale.
As are deli sandwiches stacked so high they should be registered as weapons.
November 25th, 2012 at 9:53 am
“Charging through doors for sales may get the heart pumping, but it’s hardly the kind of exercise that does one’s body good.”
Any port in a storm. As for heart attacks or stroke, you gets what you pay for. I’m a Darwinist.
“As are deli sandwiches stacked so high they should be registered as weapons.”
Corned beef sandwiches doesn’t kill. People with mouths big enough to eat them kill.
November 28th, 2012 at 2:55 am
Commies in the 1960s and 1970s said a lot of shit, but once in a while they hit the bullseye. Specifically, that obesity epidemics is a disease of capitalism.
Yes, we have our own obesity epidemic here in Brazil. I remember when I was a little kid, the country was less Americanized, and fast food joints were not common, nor shopping malls. I think the only thing that proliferated as fast as fast food joints were Evangelical Churches, the fast food of the soul.
Also, work habits have changed with a more open economy, with more competition, people working harder. People have 20-minute lunches, people have dinner in the office, so that’s more fast food, less time to be with their family, less time for exercise too.
I don’t have that problem myself. I am sort of a Charles Atlas sucess story. A weakling for almost 3 decades, I started going regularly to the gym 5 or 6 years ago. I’m no Schwarzenegger, but now I have shoulders.
And now I can’t stop going to the gym, ever. Because I got so used to consuming a lot more protein. if I stop working out, I gain weight.
November 28th, 2012 at 11:15 am
I was a skinny kid. Sometime after college I started to go from beanpole to beanpole with a paunch. This was 1978. I decided I wasn’t going to go from skinny to fat without ever being anything in between. So for a year I did pushups and sit-ups everyday. Got up to 50 pushups and 100 sit-ups with no real appreciable change in body appearance.
Then the Christopher Reeve Superman movie came out. Magazine articles revealed how Reeve was 6′ 4″ and weighed about 170 lbs. when he was cast. I was 6′ 1″ and the same weight. Reeves was put on a weight lifting regimen and gained 30 pounds. So October of 1979 I joined a gym. Been training at least 3 days a week ever since. It has been the defining activity of my life. I met the last three women I dated at the gym and married the 3rd one in 1987. We competed in a body-building contest in 1988 and took 2nd place in the Over 35 class and in the Couples class.
Now I’m 61 and always 2 to 3 pounds either side of 205. We get up at 5AM on workout days to I can train before work. It’s the best thing I do all day.
I really have comics to thank for this lifestyle. Because I read comics I cared about the Superman movie, Because I cared about the Superman movie I learned about Reeves’ weight training. Because of that I joined a gym where I met the woman I married.
I have little sympathy for people who are so out of shape that their health is bad. For the most part it is a decision to NOT be out of shape. Maybe they should have read comics.
November 28th, 2012 at 12:04 pm
2nd place!? Congrats, George.
I also think weight training is very pleasurable, and I try to do it daily. I was never any good in team sports, and so I was formerly a beanpole too. But weight-lifting, running, bicycling, I discovered after I was 30 that they all appeal to me, a lot.
It has had a profound effect on my life. It was the start of breaking out of my “shell”. I don’t mean to diss psychotherapy, but I believe weight training is extremely effective to fight depression.
But I try to be understanding of people that are very out of shape. It’s very hard to break a lifetime of bad habits. And some people just hate the atmosphere of gyms, for various reasons.
November 28th, 2012 at 12:55 pm
Rene — While psychotherapy may benefit some, for folks like me, it serves no useful purpose.
I remember once taking a “Human Communication” class back in the early 1980s for two college credits, and I was dutifully participating in all of the trust exercises and circle discussions until, near the end of the course, the instructor mentioned he was divorced.
Maybe it isn’t fair, but it struck me as odd that a PhD in interpersonal communications — someone teaching other people what they needed to do to have successful relationships — was divorced.
Regardless of whether my assessment was fair or not, it helped cement my belief that, for me anyway, psychotherapy — a soft science under the best of circumstances — was never going to be something I’d ever utilize.
As with the billions who walked this mortal coil long before Freud, I’ll just noodle along in life on my own terms, thank you very much.
November 28th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
Currently I’m not in therapy. I don’t feel like I need it any longer. Psychotherapy can be a wonderful experience, other times it can be very frustrating. If you can find a professional that is both competent and able to form a therapeutic bond with you, then it’s great.
It is true that it’s the patient that does all the real work. But it’s very advantageous to have someone else who can see things from the outside and help guide you if you become too lost in the path of getting your shit together.
I saw two therapists in my life. Ironically, the great one was a divorcee. I don’t remember the bad one’s marital status, it’s been too many years. “See things from the outside” is the key phrase. When it comes to deal with their own lives, therapists aren’t necessarily savvier than the rest of us mere mortals.
And my therapist really disliked Freud, by the way. She was Jungian. Jung should appeal to any comic book fan a lot more than Freud. Freud had a view of human beings that was a shameless metaphor of 19th century “Age of Steam” mechanics. Not to mention that he could be as sexist as any old-style Christian.
November 28th, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Psychotherapy is almost dead. Psychiatrists certainly don’t do it. They primarily prescribe drugs and monitor the dosage. I don’t have a major problem with this when applied properly. Short-term use of antidepressants prescribed by a psychiatrist along with a year of cognitive-behavioral therapy probably saved by life.
November 28th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Rene — Poor Freud. Once he was the cat’s meow, now he’s the cat’s droppings.
November 28th, 2012 at 3:35 pm
Gee, my experiences with therapists have, for the most part, been terrific. They helped me approach my problems in new ways, and certainly helped me with my marriage.
However, my therapists were all therapists. And; as a communications major in college, I know that’s a different discipline all together. Closer to linguistics, actually.
November 28th, 2012 at 3:37 pm
Psychotherapy’s not quite dead in Brazil. Perhaps because we don’t have a previous history of people popping pills to deal with their moods, there is a somewhat greater resistance to psychiatry.
It’s reflected in everyday language: “Psicólogo” is far more used than “Psiquiatra” when a layman talks about this whole class of professionals here, unlike what happens with English-language speakers.
November 28th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
There is a great play called “Freud’s Last Session” by Mark St. Germaine that I saw last year in New York. I went to the Drama Book Shop off Times Square and bought the play. It is about a fictitious meeting between Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis. This has nothing much to do with the subject at hand, (except maybe Rene’s opinion about Freud), but it is a great piece of theatre. Everyone should see it if you get the chance.
November 29th, 2012 at 7:52 am
I googled it. Sounds very interesting.
My opinion of Freud is more or less the same I have of Marx. They were both great men that said many things that needed saying. But they were both very much a product of their times, and if you base your whole viewpoint around their works you’ll end up with systems that are as restrictive as the ones they supposedly sought to replace.
Mankind needs myth and wonder.