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Health and fitness as a moral decision

Steve Freides said:
We know that proper strength and conditioning training is good for you and that it's also possible to push it too hard. See: Hormesis. Might the same be said of climbing, IOW, a moderate amount of it at a moderately challenging level of difficulty is good for you, but more might be detrimental to health?

-S-
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Well… usually (at least in my circle of climbers) it revolves around two things…. The amount of time the participants spend away from home, coupled with a very high and real risk of death….

Add to that the time spent training for (or to avoid) that outcome…
 
SteveR said:
Since a large part of health costs in society are the result of poor lifestyle decisions, one line of thought is that the individuals making those poor decisions are driving the insurance premiums up for everybody in effect stealing from those making good decisions because the poor decision makers are using a disproportionate share of the insurance premium pool.
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I was trying to make a similar point. Put another way, it's each of our responsibility to hold up our part of the communal health care system by taking care of ourselves in such as way as to minimize what we need in the way of healthcare.

Having just said the above, that also can become a slippery slope. I'll use myself as an example: I know certain things are more likely to wear out or otherwise go wrong the older I get, and I definitely go to see more medical professionals than I used to. So far, so good, and no major problems, but I never used to bother with an annual physical and now I do. It begs the question: is it irresponsible to simply age past a certain point? I think most of us would answer "No" and pretty emphatically, too, but it's not hard to make "logical" connections and start applying certain ideas or principles too broadly, IMO.

-S-
 
offwidth said:
Well… usually (at least in my circle of climbers) it revolves around two things…. The amount of time the participants spend away from home, coupled with a very high and real risk of death….

Add to that the time spent training for (or to avoid) that outcome…
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So perhaps climbing isn't the healthiest of pursuits? Again, this is all a matter of degree and I don't think there are any absolutes to be had. Personally I don't see that golf offers much return in health for time invested, so perhaps we might even make a continuum: golf as a big time commitment, low risk, and little return, strength and conditioning as a moderate time commitment, low risk and a high return, and climbing as a big time commitment, high risk, and high return.

Idle thoughts only, JMO. Climbers, I'm not out to get you, likewise golfers - I'm even, albeit very slowly, learning to play golf.

-S-
 
Steve Freides said:
climbing isn't the healthiest of pursuits?
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Oh… it’s perfectly healthy…. until it isn’t…
All kidding aside, like you said there exists a continuum. Between various activities, and even within a specific activity. The poison being in the dose…

Going for an easy run a few times a week (health and fitness) is more than a bit different from training for and doing ultramarathon mountain running…

Often times at the extreme end of activities, health, fitness, and positive contributions to relationships and society in general is questionable. But… then again, I’m not saying that there necessarily needs to be…
 
mprevost said:
I've been working through this idea that pursuing health and fitness is a moral decision and that every unhealthy decision is an immoral one. I don't mean to say that you're a bad person if you make unhealthy decisions. What I mean is those unhealthy decisions have known negative consequences for our family members our community and society. I have lots of reasons in my head, but I would be interested in your thoughts about this.
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You have a lot of related and unrelated comments...what are the reasons in your head?
 
Steve Freides said:
I was trying to make a similar point. Put another way, it's each of our responsibility to hold up our part of the communal health care system by taking care of ourselves in such as way as to minimize what we need in the way of healthcare.

Having just said the above, that also can become a slippery slope. I'll use myself as an example: I know certain things are more likely to wear out or otherwise go wrong the older I get, and I definitely go to see more medical professionals than I used to. So far, so good, and no major problems, but I never used to bother with an annual physical and now I do. It begs the question: is it irresponsible to simply age past a certain point? I think most of us would answer "No" and pretty emphatically, too, but it's not hard to make "logical" connections and start applying certain ideas or principles too broadly, IMO.

-S-
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Well said. We humans are a complex bunch.
 
Steve Freides said:
I was trying to make a similar point. Put another way, it's each of our responsibility to hold up our part of the communal health care system by taking care of ourselves in such as way as to minimize what we need in the way of healthcare.
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That's fine, and I agree, as long as government (i.e., the coercive use/threat of force) stays out of it.
 
I saw the thread title and wanted my popcorn emoji again.

Lots of good points being made.

Imo you can’t separate health from environment. That is, you are limited/restricted by what you have available to you. Someone mentioned food deserts, for instance. Also, there are way too many factors that affect peoples’ mental health and decision making outside of the individual that are at play.

I mean no offense to anyone, but I see a lot of these kinds of arguments being made by people who are a far cry from being professional researchers (I’m not referring to any forum members, just in general). Everyone gets to have their own opinion, but that doesn’t mean their opinion matches reality. I’ve mentioned it in other threads; there is a correlation between wealth inequality and social and health issues. There’s plenty of data about behaviors and health outcomes that the “personal responsibility” folks never seem to mention.

Also, someone brought up pollution. What a great point! If someone is to make the argument that personal decisions to not live a healthy lifestyle is bad for the whole of society, then it would, in my view, be pretty hypocritical not to apply that same argument to industries that pollute. Likewise it would be hypocritical not to apply it to systems/entities that reduce or hinder human wellbeing as a whole through withholding/hoarding resources that could be distributed to those without (hello capitalism). I don’t suggest that the government take away everyone’s money and evenly distribute it. I suggest that perhaps having about 3000 people (out of 7 billion) own most of the wealth in the world isn’t making things better for the whole. I suggest that it’s perfectly reasonable for people to be jaded and fatalist when they can barely make rent and eat food while working multiple labor jobs while some guy who shuffles numbers for a living makes more than they will see in their lifetime in a week.

Let’s take that last example. Say person A is a grade school who teaches all week and also has to work part time in a grocery store on the weekends (my own parents had to do similar). They have to do it to support their family. They can’t “just move” because they can’t save money because of food and housing costs. Now let’s say person B had their family help pay for business school right out of high school (or maybe they got athletic scholarships) and they make 6 figures for 40 hours a week at their first “real job,” in marketing or trading. They get married, have a kid or two, and can afford a nanny and house cleaner. Who is contributing to society more? They person who helps raise the children in the community and sells food or the person who sells ideas and “trades” 1s and 0s all day?

My big point is that there are lots of things people do that probably contribute more to societal problems or at least don’t contribute anything, than something like “not making healthy choices.”

If someone is going to point a finger at someone else for doing something “immoral” or that affects the whole negatively, then they need to point that finger at themselves too. It shouldn’t be applied selectively.
 
silveraw said:
Which kinda brings up a different problem. Who decides what is healthy and what isn’t? Plenty of people believe excess LDL levels are absolutely fine and promote it as a healthy lifestyle. Lots of well designed studies disprove that idea. Who is morally right? Both sides believe they have the truth.
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But isn't it a problem with any ethical decision in general? Any action we take is inherently constrained by uncertainty about it's actual effects. The fact that say, a charity purported to take care of homeless people might instead divert funds to its managers' pockets, or even to activities considered immoral by its donors doesn't really matter for the question whether it's a moral imperative to help the homeless. A question of what's a moral good is one thing, a question of how to pursue it is another.
 
TimothyGander said:
But isn't it a problem with any ethical decision in general? Any action we take is inherently constrained by uncertainty about it's actual effects. The fact that say, a charity purported to take care of homeless people might instead divert funds to its managers' pockets, or even to activities considered immoral by its donors doesn't really matter for the question whether it's a moral imperative to help the homeless. A question of what's a moral good is one thing, a question of how to pursue it is another.
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To clarify, values are a foundation to morals. Morals are a foundatiom to ethics.

An ethics question is dependent on a presupposition of morality.

A morality question is dependent on a presupposition of values.

Answering the following questions allows one to calculate the ethics of a posited question...

What values are held?
What moralities are formed around those values?
 
@Steve Freides popcorn emoji usually refers to someone who can't wait to sit and read the comments, or something similar to that effect

It's a very deep philosophical question and one I've thought about in the past, but is so steeped in complexity. As a few mentioned, environment plays a huge role. Economic situation. Community. Support structure. Education/knowledge.

Some people choose not to pursue health & fitness for maybe reasons such as sloth, but there are a good many who 'choose' for other reasons.
 
bluejeff said:
I’ve mentioned it in other threads; there is a correlation between wealth inequality and social and health issues. There’s plenty of data about behaviors and health outcomes that the “personal responsibility” folks never seem to mention.
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100%
Super paleo/Goop crowd people aren't healthy because they only eat heritage almonds from a organic farm that only uses 17th century farming practices.
They are healthy because they can afford spending $50 on a nut.

Unfortunately when you search for how to eat healthy, you don't get the basic "eat lots of veggies and lean proteins". You get people with consipracies about cheap oils showing correlation graphs and selling super expensive alternatives.

I believe the new term for this is "Hank's Razor". If something can be plausably explained by socio economic status, it is probably socio economic status. Eg, studies that show people who play racket sports are healthier than other sports.
 
silveraw said:
I believe the new term for this is "Hank's Razor". If something can be plausably explained by socio economic status, it is probably socio economic status. Eg, studies that show people who play racket sports are healthier than other sports.
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So true, I've never heard that term but makes sense. I'm a tennis fanatic but I hate the 'tennis is best for longevity'; they even brought this up during the trophy presentation at the recent US Open final this weekend.
Where I live if you want to play tennis indoors it's a minimum $150 a month... and that's without paying an additional court fee every time you step on the courts! Even my outdoor club is $400 for the year, which in our climate amounts to mid April - mid October in a good year.
 
Among all the problematic complexities of this issue, one that stands out to me that I don't think has been mentioned prominently is luck -- and luck has no moral dimension.

Good health requires good luck.

It's not that our choices don't have effects, but $#!+ happens that is beyond our control, from generally difficult and unfortunate life circumstances, to specific accidents and disease. Bad luck can, and all too often does, negate all our actions and intentions.

I train for fitness and to have fun.

I hope for good health.
 
Several posts, including one of my own, removed. No politics, please. Replies to any of the removed posts will also be removed.

-S-
 
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