EverYoung’s BodyBlog

Given this widely recognized social duty of homeownership, it’s surprising that there is virtually no sense of a social duty to keep one’s own body in shape. Even when someone strives for physical fitness it may be seen as selfish and at best ‘good for them’. But a moment of thought should persuade you that it would be more enjoyable to be around people with fit and beautiful bodies than around a bunch of hideously obese slobs. Just as there is a visual aesthetics to seeing beautiful homes, there is to seeing beautiful bodies, even outside any sexual context. So the person who strives to get into shape is not merely benefiting themselves. Their efforts enhance the visual life of others and thereby fulfill a social duty to maintain a world that is enjoyable to behold.

Furthermore, a social duty to fitness may go even deeper than public aesthetics. Perhaps at no time in history has an argument for such a duty been more cogent than now given recent research showing that obesity is ’socially contagious’. Scientists now believe that living around people who are out of shape may increase the odds that you’ll be out of shape too. In short, being visibly out of shape sets a social standard that says flushing fitness down the toilet is okay, join the crowd! On the upside this means when you’re physically fit you increase the odds that others will strive for fitness too. If so, we have a social duty to personal physical fitness not only in order to maintain public visual aesthetics but to help others be fit and healthy too.

The case for a social duty to physical fitness could be extended further by considering social costs of health care such as insurance premiums. Maintaining physical fitness lowers health-care costs and thereby health-insurance premiums. This is similarly true in countries with national health insurance. But the question before us is how do we instill an ethos of personal physical fitness in an increasingly unfit world? - Ian Goddard