Last week I caught myself counting steps. Not as in one, two, three … twenty-four up to the Town Hall’s front door – somebody is bound to correct me about that figure, but I am honestly not sad enough to really go count. I mean footsteps. How far I walked in an average day.
I was given a pedometer by Living Streets (I also got a T-shirt, medium, which almost covered my rib cage and was so tight around the neck I feared wearing it in case I was mistaken for one of those curious people who get a thrill from auto-asphyxiation.) When I last saw the pedometer it read 11, 348. So at least I learned something useful – that in a normal day I manage to walk more than the government recommended amount before I have my first glass of wine. This news gave a huge fillip to my moral well-being. I bet nobody else in the pub deserved a drink half as much as I did. So I had another drink to celebrate my superior virtue. And then I lost the pedometer. Or rather, I overdid the celebrations and must have left the thing on the table when I stumbled out into the evening sunshine.
What my little moral fable illuminates is that none of us are immune to the health and well-being meme. Everything we do these days has to have a health outcome, improve our individual sense of well-being or generally add to the shiny happiness of society in general. If I choose to walk somewhere I am contributing to the health of the nation (even though I’m generally just pub hopping.) If we want to build a cycle path we have to show how much it’ll reduce the national lard. And if we want to write a poem, put on a play, or paint a picture we have to take into consideration how many smiles it will put on people’s faces – will it make us feel more merry and bright, increase the sum of societal cheeriness?
I’m not against health. Well-being is nice if you can get some. But really, is that all there is?
Can you imagine Shakespeare pitching The Merchant of Venice to the Arts Council? Hmm, a pound of flesh … so the play is about tackling obesity. Let’s make it a round 10kg target and I think we can get match funding from public health. And we think Shylock should be promoting five a day …
I doubt Shakespeare would have written better if he’d had health and well-being outcomes to consider. Some things just don’t work that way.
Anyhow, I’m off to have a deep fried Mars Bar and a bottle of Newcastle Brown before I put my feet up in front of the telly.
Actually I’m having cous cous with roast veg, a bottle of Evian and I’m off to see West Side Story at The Grand but that sounds far too healthy for my own good.