Working out…our problems this 2022
A friendly reminder from these not-so mean girls (Image generated from imgflip)
Halfway through 2022 and—debatably—at the tail end of this pandemic, we’ve gotten used to being bombarded with a lot of pressure from a society that’s both wary of and trying, very hard, to move on from COVID.
Go out and meet people, but don’t catch the virus. Live your life, but make more money. Admittedly, it’s hard to attempt all these when your mind is everywhere, everything, all at once. Maybe that’s why instead of hitting the gym for the physical #gains, people are doing it for the mental ones instead. The keyword here is “wellness,” and it’s surely gaining on plain “fitness.”
According to a 2022 trends report from online fitness-class scheduling platform Mindbody, 78% of Americans said wellness is more important than ever. That’s why the top two reasons they’re working out now are to reduce stress and feel better mentally. Compare that to 2019, when weight control and looking better were people’s top reasons for exercise, and you’d get just how much the pandemic re-shuffled our priorities and made us realize things.
“People are reporting slightly different motives for wanting to be active,” said Genevieve Dunton, a research chief at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. “The reasons are certainly more about stress reduction, anxiety release, and improved sleep.”
The fitness culture shift
So does that mean abs and biceps are out of fashion now? Not necessarily. ClassPass users still prefer strength training the most.
But wellness goes beyond being in shape now. Second to strength training is yoga, which helps 40% of people get through a stressful day. It means working on the mental, physical, and spiritual—be it by seeking out community or doing less intense, more varied workouts that yield diverse benefits, such as recovery or a stronger immune system. For instance, dance classes made it to the top 10 ClassPass workouts for the first time, and we’re all here for it.
The way fitness culture shifted around the pandemic crowns mental wellness as the end goal and no longer a side effect. Additionally, social distancing and WFH have resulted in more livestream classes and midday workouts.
Less fast and furious, more slow and steady, as the mantra goes. More people are out of shape from staying home for two years, anyway. We have to take it easier—the World Health Organization said so themselves.
Of callouts and dolomite bleach
In a report published last week, the WHO called on all nations to invest more on mental health. Before the pandemic, almost a billion people were living with a mental disorder. By 2020, rates of depression and anxiety rose by a quarter.
At present, only 2% of national health budgets and less than 1% of all international health aid goes to mental health, according to the report.
Because of WHO’s callout, Senator Christopher “Bong'' Go called out our own stakeholders on Monday to push for stronger mental health services. These include free support at the barangay level and a more comprehensive mental health package from PhilHealth. Go insisted that efforts must align with the Mental Health Law signed by President Rodrigo Duterte back in 2018.
Hopefully, it’s not all lip service. These appeals sound a lot more promising than a dolomite beach, so we ought to hold on to Go’s words and these agencies’ greater mandates to the people for the sake of our 2022 #FitnessGoals.
(READ ALSO: PhilHealth is charging us more this year.)
