A news report I read recently said that, according to the latest
study, one third of Britons don’t get enough exercise, and this results in 5.3
million deaths a year.
OK, some questions:
Who decides what activities constitute ‘exercise?’ It isn’t
simply a matter of calorific expenditure.
Who decides what the ‘right’ amount of exercise is for any
given individual?
Are we seriously to believe that one in twelve of the UK
population dies every year as a result of
not getting enough exercise?
Is this another example of academics competing in the
increasingly popular Silliness Olympics (remember the one which concluded that
people don’t drink the ‘right’ quantity of fluid every day, which means that
85% of the population are dehydrated?)
Is it, instead, yet another example of misunderstanding and/or
misrepresentation on the part of the media?
How long will it be before the latest study concludes that
aliens really do eat people’s hamsters?
Does anybody actually believe this nonsense?
2 comments:
Hi Jeff, we are constantly inundated with these kind of silly 'statistics' in the states, too. I hate to think how many of my tax dollars go to funding ridiculous stuff like this.
Seems to me that Nanny State is becoming ever sillier and more nannyish. I'm sure people are completely fatigued by this plethora of numbers and ignore them anyway. What I would like them to make issues of are such things as how many chemicals McDonalds put in their products, but those sort of statistics you have to go searching for.
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