Norms that need challenging

In Denmark.loads of people ride bikes. It's normal. I read that some respondents to a physical activity survey there reported that they didn't take any exercise even though they cycled 5 miles to work every day. 

Now I might go out for a hilly bike ride now and then, but most of the exercise I get is simply incidental. I make lots of short journeys (less than 5 miles), the vast majority on foot or bike, and if exercise only feels like it counts if you've made an effort to take it, I can understand why these Danes thought the way they did.  This is a little bit like the way in which older everyday familiar technologies, such as chairs, washing lines and pencils, don't really seem to count as technology; a status that tends to be reserved for everything that doesn't quite work yet. But, just as the pencil was a crucial technology in the development of natural history ( you could bring home pictures of what you'd seen), incidental exercise is crucial in maintaining public health.

A decade ago Scarborough was declared a Renaissance town and lots of public meetings were held. I, of course, took the opportunity to emphasise the positive role bicycles could play in this process. The arguments I made, about public health, pollution, traffic, conviviality etc were by and large incontrovertible (though I say so myself) but this doesn't mean that they were welcome. A typical response was "it's alright for you, you're fit". The largely ineffective words I used to respond to these comments confidently asserted that just as eggs definitely came before chickens if I seem fit it's because I ride my bike.

Back when I had a dog to take for regular walks, I inevitably got into conversation with fellow dog walkers. I remember a few in which what was to me some outrageous remark or other was supported by the simple evidence that everyone the dog walker knew thought the same thing. I'd then point out that if we went into a cafe, in Baghdad for example,  we'd find a group of old men there who'd think something completely different to you but would also believe it to be true because all the people they knew thought it too. At this point in the conversation, a dog could be counted on to need attention and we'd end up going our separate ways. The point of this is simply that most people most of the time do not think things through for themselves, instead they say what they think other people like them would say. 

The Nobel prize winning economist and psychologist Daniel Kahneman in his book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" drew a firm distinction between Type 1 and Type 2 thinking. Type 1 gives us  fast instinctive decisions and opinions, Type 2 slower, more careful, deliberations. These fast responses tend to reflect the social norms of those that surround us. The wisdom that we've received from others. As someone of limited instinctive social intelligence, I've never been very good at picking up what an appropriate set of received opinions is and have the annoying habit of, if not quite directly questioning what I'm being told, not quite managing to suppress a sceptical frown.

So, when I start talking about the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle and the benefits of leaving the car at home, or at least not insisting on parking the damn thing right next to your intended destination, the speed of the typical response "oh you'll never get people to do that, we're too lazy" strongly suggests that this is a Type 1 response and tells me more about the speaker's social identity than whether or not they've got a valid point. It's not hard to imagine that a typical Dane might give a different response. 

Of course there are times in our evolutionary past when it made sense to conserve our personal energy reserves. There's no point going out on a long hunting expedition if there's little prospect of bringing home anything to eat. If you've just had your big share of a wild pig that had to be eaten before it went off, or scavengers came to steal it, then it makes sense to chill for a while and let your guts get on with it. But in an age when many of us are oversupplied with food and can be fairly confident that there will be something on the plate next week, let alone in a few hours time, the need to conserve our energy supplies is hardly paramount. 

Were I to be a visitor from another planet, I suspect I might suggest that the real reason why so many of us are so reluctant  to get around under our own steam is that we've been made car dependent. Not just physically by designing our towns and cities so that it's more comfortable, and feels safer, to drive than to walk or cycle, but also psychologically with cars as signifiers of status and social identity. But that's a tale for another day. 

From the Transport Research Laboratory Report (1997)

"Attitudes to Cycling:a qualitative study and conceptual framework" 

Previously posted in "Dispositional or Situational"

After we've stopped people smoking, or drinking too much, the next biggest impact on their health is physical inactivity. Given that our dependence on motor cars has not only exposed huge numbers of us to noise, pollution and direct physical harm but has also made it possible, indeed aspirational, to lead dangerously sedentary lives, it's high time that the destructive nature of this dependency made its way up the list of our political priorities. 

I hereby admit to having no easy answers....