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ObservantWon t1_j16k6dl wrote

But our government did nothing to promote physical activity and living a healthy lifestyle. Instead, they shut gyms down and closed down parks.

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uninstallIE t1_j17u30l wrote

It is quite strange and disappointing that this messaging was missed. It would have been a great time to really get this conversation going. Sadly we received the opposite message and we now have a cult of people who espouse the belief that any exercise that feels hard is bad and any hunger cravings must be indulged taking over nutritional practices.

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SnooPuppers1978 t1_j18vl6x wrote

And consider that many people lost their routine of doing sports, which could've affected their routine afterwards everything was reopened as well. I know I used to be an active, disciplined gym goer with established routine, but I didn't have motivation after to have the same routine as I did before. I felt like I already lost a lot of my gains, and so after that my going to gym was more on and off. It can be hard to re-establish this motivation, since part of my motivation was being on the peak of my records and skill. So I was always motivated about potential progress.

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ImportantRope t1_j19kiyp wrote

I mean do you think the government telling people to exercise and change their diets is really going to do anything? Are you that naive? They've been trying to do that for years to fight the obesity epidemic. It hasn't been working. People know their lifestyles are unhealthy, it's not a knowledge problem. It's a society problem. We've created a society where it's cheap and easy to eat crap and be sedentary.

When my grandparents were alive their doctor tried to get them to be more active and change their diet and they tried but we're talking about a lifetime's worth of habits you're trying to change. It doesn't happen overnight and it won't happen during a pandemic. Even if it did, it's going take time for people to reap the benefits and you don't have time.

Gyms happen to be a terrible place for spreading airborne disease. You have people breathing heavily and swearing everywhere. Understand there's a lot that goes into decisions leading to shutting down a gym. Less infection equals less bad health outcomes. I was a daily gym goer for a decade and started working out at home, you wouldn't find me in a gym during a pandemic.

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ObservantWon t1_j1aypne wrote

You know what’s worse for disease then a gym? Sitting at home, eating junk food and being sedentary. That’s what our government promoted. They even discouraged people from going on walks and hikes in the fresh open air.

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ImportantRope t1_j1b5ier wrote

Just curious where you're from where going on walks or hikes was discouraged?

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ObservantWon t1_j1b6zfj wrote

Moms were being kicked out of parks with their kids by law enforcement. Surfers getting kicked out of the damn ocean. The lockdowns in certain states were absolutely insane. Certain state and local governments were totalitarian in their lockdowns. This was pretty rampant during the beginning months of Covid and into the summer.

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ImportantRope t1_j1baba3 wrote

Locally at least we had record people hitting the trails in record number. I'm not prepared to defend all local and state government decisions, obviously there's going to be some big mistakes in there. Doesn't make every public health measure wrong

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DocGlabella t1_j1a9wkz wrote

No one is saying the government should have encouraged people to exercise more. Just that during the pandemic, many governments actively inhibited it, and closed down all forms of exercise, even things outside or in very well-ventilated gyms with big, open garage doors, which are extremely low risk.

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ImportantRope t1_j1afr13 wrote

The person I was replying to said that, saw it multiple times in the comments, even someone saying they have no idea why the president didn't come out and tell people to exercise for 30 minutes. It seems your complaint is a bit different though, rather than they closed all gyms rather than certain gyms? This is all going to be heavily regionalized as well

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DocGlabella t1_j1ag9px wrote

They said what I said actually. That closing down gyms did not promote an active lifestyle. Pretty sure they weren’t arguing that the government should’ve gone out and forced people to exercise. They were annoyed that we closed down exercise facilities.

Edit: don’t you just hate it when somebody edits their comment after you’ve already responded to it, making you sound nonsensical? Not engaging with you anymore if you’re going to do that. Your original comment just said “that’s what the person I was responding to said.“

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ImportantRope t1_j1aj10g wrote

While it sounds nice to be able to differentiate between gyms with excellent ventilation and not, in practicality it's quite a logistical nightmare. How are you determining which gyms are allowed to stay open? Is a garage door open enough? What defines good enough ventilation? Can you still have a class of people breathing on each other? Who is checking all these things? The reality is that you need to be able to take public health measures during a pandemic, and closing gyms which are going to be major sources of disease spreading, is a no brainer. It's a weird hill to die on imo. Theres more ways to exercise than the gym, I know because I've been doing it.

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ObservantWon t1_j1aww1s wrote

So close all gyms but keep fast food restaurants open. Stupidity at its finest

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ImportantRope t1_j1b62oz wrote

This would be a false equivalency, takeout with proper precautions should be fairly low risk. Sit down to eat with a mask off is obviously theater. Of course you're trying to compare eating junk food to working out. Obesity is a different epidemic and we can discuss solutions to that but I have my doubts you care that much.

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ObservantWon t1_j1b7nd0 wrote

Young, healthy gym goers weren’t the ones filling up hospitals. The media and our government was completely dishonest from the beginning. They made it seem like everyone was getting violently ill and dying from Covid, when the vast majority were over 65, and chronically unhealthy. So why close gyms? For what purpose? Who were they protecting? But keep drive thrus open at McDonald’s and Burger King.

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ImportantRope t1_j1b9hwg wrote

I don't know what media you were watching but that wasn't never the narrative I heard, even from the beginning. This seems to be the mistake I hear from people with your point of view all the time. It's a selfish one that doesn't understand society and public health. Yes the majority of deaths were not young, healthy people. But with just obesity being a co-morbidity that's 42% of the population. Then throw in diabetes, asthma, smoking, heart conditions, and the elderly and a majority of your population is at risk. The more people that get sick, the more people it spreads to. This is epidemiology 101. The only way to try to protect an at risk population that large is to try to slow the spread and not overwhelm your healthcare system. Should be really easy to understand. More and more research is pointing to long term complications from COVID without it being fatal, so it's not only death is the only consequence to consider.

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