Living in Delhi, I know a thing or two about exercising in the heat. (And the cold. And the pollution. But those are for another day and another blog post!)
Starting about now, late March, my days will gradually kick off earlier and earlier. I am no stranger to 4.30 am alarms, on days when I have a long run scheduled. And I’m not alone – around Delhi’s Nehru Park (aka Runners Central) there will be loads of other folk in the pre-dawn darkness, out running around the track or on the surrounding roads.
As the summer heats up, we all start early, and wrap up by around 7 or 8 o’clock, if it’s not already too blisteringly hot by then.
I’m privileged enough, as a retired old lady, that I can then go for a swim, drive home, and if I’m knackered, have a quick mid-morning nap.
So, yeah, hardly the stuff of suffering, right?
It’s simply a question of adjusting my timings, and ignoring my husband grumbling about how we live in different time zones! Often he’s just surfacing when I’m ready for my post-run snooze, so he has a point, but Needs Must.
Adapt to survive Delhi’s summers, in other words.
Not so in many parts of the world.
I read a sobering article in The Guardian last week, discussing a study in The Lancet, on the effects of rising global temperatures on our physical activity and health.
“Rising temperatures are making physical activity undesirable and even dangerous in many parts of the world, and as global heating worsens, it will further affect how much people are able to move.”
It makes for sad, worrisome (and dare I say) almost predictable reading. The world’s poorest countries will bear the brunt of the climate crisis, and women will be impacted much more than men.
So no surprises there, then.
“The biggest increases in inactivity are projected to be in hotter regions such as Central America, the Caribbean, eastern sub-Saharan Africa, and equatorial south-east Asia, where inactivity could rise by more than four percentage points a month.“
According to the study, the projected increase in physical inactivity because of rising temperatures could contribute to about half a million premature deaths annually.
Half. A. Million.
That is a terrifying thought.
I found this comment I the article very interesting:
“The authors say the results show that physical activity should be treated as a climate-sensitive public health issue, not just an individual lifestyle choice.” (My underlining)
That’s an innovative take.
In India, where I live, choosing to exercise (as opposed to exercising because you’re a manual or agricultural labourer) is not only a lifestyle choice, but also an indicator of a certain degree of affluence and leisure time.
But, being frank, not enough people in urban India exercise, even if they have the time and the money to do so.
Most of my peers, age-wise, take little to no exercise. The occasional slow walk in the local park. A round of golf from time to time. But everyone drives – well, gets driven – everywhere, and individual physical exercise is limited. If it’s like this for people with privilege, the prospect for more people to get fit amidst ever-rising temperatures is a dismal one.
So, what’s to be done?
In Delhi we have many challenges over and above our summer heat. We have crazy pollution, crazy, noisy, indisciplined traffic. We have urban expansion that stupidly requires trees to be cut…whereas what the report recommends is the direct opposite of what we see in Delhi:
“… designing cooler cities by expanding the tree cover and shade networks in streets and parks, providing affordable air-conditioned places to exercise…”
Let’s not kid ourselves: we Delhi folk will never get the affordable A/C places for everyone to exercise, but we should/could/MUST plant more trees.
And on a global scale?
I despair at the thought of people the world over getting unhealthier by the day because of the uncomfortable rising temperatures, much of which we cause ourselves.
What are we, as a people, doing to ourselves?
