Lockdowns have also broken everyone’s regular exercise and healthy habits. On charts we all assign this to Covid, but lockdowns were an artificial, additional decision.
I experienced the opposite effect described here, and I ascribe the positive effects to lockdown. Before COVID, I ran about 5km once a month, and I was pretty slow.
I got COVID early on in February 2020, and while it initially seemed mild, the tail end was severe. Pain that made me worry I might have been having a mini-stroke, and after that lung issues making it painful to take a shallow breath. After a week or so, it was just painful to breathe deeply but otherwise OK.
I started doing low heart-rate running, trying to keep my HR below 132. Initially, this was really hard, and even jogging slightly too fast could cause my HR to spike to 180 and stay there for 5 minutes. But over the next couple of weeks as my lungs improved again, it got better and better. Within a few months, I was doing at least 5km every time I went for a run, and running 3 or 4 times a week. I've got faster and faster as a result, and I've knocked a third off my 5km PB time from pre-COVID.
My health hasn't been better for many years, and that's only because the lockdown conditions meant that I was working from home so could take a long break at lunchtime, we were allowed out for exercise, but otherwise the streets were deserted. I think lockdown was the best thing that's ever happened to me in terms of exercise opportunities.
There certainly was some disruption in gyms as workout places, but I'd be cautious about systematic conclusions like "broken everyone's regular exercise and healthy habits" given observable factors like:
* increased personal time for workouts for anyone working remotely (or forgoing employment entirely)
* dramatically increased demand & prices for home exercise equipment
* shifts to cooking at home
March / April 2020 seemed to be marked by a lot of people going outside and running. Personally,
I shed over 35 lbs of bodyfat in 2020 and have had few comparable periods where I hiked as often or ate as cleanly, and I'm far from alone in my circle of acquaintances.
Absolutely. Sales of bike exercise equipment (plus Peloton’s share price), and outdoor sports gear went parabolic in 2020 and remain at record highs. The idea that “lockdowns” inhibited exercise while in many countries exercising outdoors is laughable.
Not nitpicking, because I hope you're correct. That said, sales doesn't equal actual sustained usage.
Anecdotal: I run almost every day. Don't get excited, only 2 to 4 miles :) Early in the pandemic I saw plenty of new faces - often couples - out exercising. Some running, mostly walking. I don't see many of those faces any more.
No doubt there were high sales of home exercise equipment - and running became more popular.
But there were some very cautious times during lockdown. Events like Parkrun were cancelled for months on end. Loads of races were cancelled. Gyms were closed. Indoor fitness activities like dance, yoga, pilates, and aerobics were cancelled (and their online alternatives much more sparsely attended). If the place you were doing swimming/squash/tennis/golf is closed, you're out of luck. Football, hockey and basketball aren't compatible with social distancing. Neither is boxing, judo or MMA. People who commuted by foot or bike started working from home.
Running and cycling were certainly winners, but I'm certain there were a lot of losers as well.
I ride a bike 3k+ miles a year, every year for the past 15 years, on the various trails near me and I can say with absolute certainty that the volume of people running, biking, walking, ... on those same trails more than tripled at the beginning of the pandemic and have yet to decrease back to baseline. I don't know about those individuals exercise habits prior to the pandemic, but they certainly weren't on the trails.
> attitudes and disciplines are also somewhat to blame.
This is how the disease will be dismissed. Why bother researching it when you can just blame the victim? It works for ME and endometriosis, and it's far cheaper than diagnosing and treating people.
Not sure it is accurate to say Sweden did not lock down. Afaik they had some measures in place, and were counting on people to behave sensibly in other aspects. So even though there were perhaps less lockdown rules, most people might still have adjusted their behavior.
As mentioned I think this really only applies on a macro scale.
Individual anecdotes (such as my personal friends who did not change behaviour), while unscientific, paint a similar picture to what is being presented as evidence, so it's an additional data point to consider.
So, at least there is some correlation with the sentiment, and by people whom I know have not adjusted their behaviour. (including myself)
Sweden's restrictions were excessively light, by the way, 8pm closing of restaurants and gyms is not exactly a big deal to people going to the gym after work.
In Göteborg SATS nor Friskis&Svettis were never closed during the pandemic. I also knew that Fitness24 was open all the way too. Which gym are you talking about?
My gym and pool area in the same building, run by the same company (medley). The pool was closed by the city and the gym was closed by proxy.
Fitness24/7 in town was so small that it was impossible to get in due to covid retrictions. Something like a maximum of 9 people which meant that it was impossible to get in during popular hours.
> "Lockdowns have also broken everyone’s regular exercise and healthy habits."
If anything, I think I actually got a bit healthier because of lockdown. Eating healthier due to fewer restaurant meals, drinking less due to not being able to go to pubs and parties etc.
Probably got more exercise too because for a while it was one of the few valid excuses to get out of the house!
> Lockdowns have also broken everyone’s regular exercise and healthy habits.
Why do you make assumptions about "everyone"? I'm sure there are as many diverse experiences during 'lockdowns' as there are people who experienced them. Obviously if you include the rare cases where people were actually kept indoors (how long did those actually last?), then healthy exercise might have been more difficult.
In my case, my health has improved immeasurably, as I no longer need to sit in an office all day, eat an unhealthy lunch and eat office-supplied snacks the way I did before.
I eat more healthily, get more fresh air, walk and cycle at lunchtimes - and even get more work done in fewer hours.
Lockdown was also in place for the control group so its effects should be accounted for. You could try to show a negative health effect of people in quarantine, but this is not possible if all infected are placed in quarantine.
All of the replies to this completely ignore those of us who have families, and especially young families. Good for you if the sudden removal of responsibilities gave you the freedom to get outside for long periods every day. However, frankly people like this were the main reason I had to quit Strava. While my wife and I struggled to hold our lives and jobs together when it became illegal to have anyone else look after our kids, I had to watch everyone else enjoy day-long rides and runs in the hills.
And before you come out with the usual "you just need to use more imagination and take your kids with you" - for a start, the situation I described above drained more energy and life than I care to remember. Also, there's only so much a 1 year old will put up with, when I am used to rides of up to 100 miles.
Personally, I am deeply embittered by the whole experience.
Childcare is definitely an issue in so many contexts, can definitely recognize that. Hopefully that's something more people are thinking about going forward with an eye towards the social value of it and the problems of people facing it in even non-epidemic situations.
But gains from no-commute / remote setups weren't limited to single/childless people. Some of the people I know who were taking rides / runs in the hills were couples with kids working schedules out with their partners, and I can think of families who demonstrated that reproduction doesn't bar one from buying home exercise equipment.
And "it became illegal to have anyone else look after our kids" -- I get that it's frustrating to have a service that you rely on closed. I can see that'd be especially hard with group daycare. I saw that frustration play out. I also saw people continue babysitting or au pair arrangements with whatever behavioral stipulations for epidemic-safety made sense to them, and that got easier as lots of people pulled out of service/retail labor force. Childcare was different but illegal seems like hyperbole.
I'm sure your experience was difficult or stressful; lots of people found adapting difficult in various ways (nor were single/childless people exempt, though the challenges might be different). But the idea that the parent poster forwarded that somehow civil policies generally "broke" people's health/exercise habits is a poor generalization... and whatever the truth about the difficulty of your particular situation, the idea that adapting was just impossible for people with kids and additionally that anyone pushing back on criticism of restrictions just isn't thinking about that doesn't hold up as a generalization either.
>I also saw people continue babysitting or au pair arrangements
I mean what I said. Where I live (Wales, UK), it was illegal to have people in your house (and obviously, that meant you also couldn't go into anyone else's house) until mid-2021. Obviously, we did not follow that law, as it was absurd and would have caused significant harm to me and those close to me.
Do not patronise me, by suggesting I should have "planned better" or "adjusted quicker". Saying such things is incredibly demeaning to the effort we did have to go to, to do our best as a family. Trust me, once I realised that no-one else was looking out for us, I did plenty to ensure that those closest to me would be ok (and mostly, that consisted of breaking newly-passed Covid laws, including the one I already mentioned. It was also illegal for me to go to our nearby woodland, because we were not allowed to leave the county we live in and I live in a city that is its own county.). I am proud to say that my two young kids will probably have no memory of Covid, and am very proud to say that we have also not succumbed to the new parenting norm of allowing kids of almost any age to spend as much time as they like staring at screens. In doing so, selfish pursuits like my cycling and other hobbies have had to take a back seat.
> Where I live (Wales, UK), it was illegal to have anyone in your house (and obviously, that meant you also couldn't go into anyone else's house) until mid-2021.
Maybe lead with that specific, then. You know, the idea that people weren't properly accounting for Wales, rather than what you said, which was that people weren't properly accounting for those with children.
Though if we're accounting for Wales, my understanding is that like the rest of the UK (and similar to many other western countries) it had established "alert levels" as described here:
with restrictions that varied over time. Looking at the alert levels for early 2021 via the wayback machine, it seems like up through Alert Level 3 [0], it's hard to read the restrictions as "illegal to have anyone in your house" so I don't know what to make of that. Even if we're saying Alert Level 4 [1] was simply constant from 2020 onset through mid 2021, the language under that seems to have some wiggle room in it.
If acknowledgement that there were genuine struggles alongside examining the shortcomings in generalizations within your comment feels patronizing, I can drop the empathy. Would that be better for you, or would you like us to stick with politely allowing that regrettable difficulty and acceptable adaptation could actually overlap?
Thank you for quickly googling my lived experience. Yes, we had "Alert Levels". The actual laws and guidelines in place at any one time also did not bear much resemblance to the supposed "Alert Level". FYI, it was June 7th 2021 when we were allowed to have other people inside our houses.
I appreciate that I have lived through a particularly draconian and frankly absurd set of restrictions since 2020. However, my comments on being a parent over this time are still valid. It has been especially tough, and I doubt that anyone I referenced in my original comment has kids of their own.
Count me with the "more healthy" crowd. Work from home has made it much easier to keep a healthy lifestyle. Eating at home with food I cook. No time commuting to work. No temptation to go out to some restaurant for tasty, but horrible for me, food and a couple of cocktails.
I have a good deal of empathy for those who don't get to work from home, but I'm the opposite of "healthy habits got worse."
Oh no. I have created a new exercise habit thanks to lockdown. I got on the "get exercise equipment" train early. I'm MUCH healthier now thanks to lockdown; lost about 5 kg, can do 13 pull-ups, lift weights 5 days a week, etc.
The US lock down was a joke. Most places barely shut down gyms and that still leaves exercising at home and outdoor recreation as an option. We know that these people contracted a disease that damages the cardiovascular system. It stretches credibility past the breaking point to surmise that lock downs resulted in a meaningful portion of this mortality or morbidity.
