The case for a physical identity
When I was stressed out as a kid, I shot jumpers. I stopped playing basketball a long time ago, so I kick stress with hikes, walks and start my day with a daily workout to prime the brain and feel good.
I was listening to an episode of The Art of Manliness Podcast last week on which Dr. Daniel O’Neill was a guest. I was again confronted with the sad state of health in the United States. O’Neill explained the difference between, and the consequences of, what happens when non-athletes adopt non-physical lifestyles. He warned of the increasing phenomenon of students who don’t identify as athletes, not pursuing physical activity at all.
In a culture hyper-focused on adhering to the principles of an identity or conforming to orthodoxy, we might be pushing teenagers to make a decision which ignores reality. There is a difference between an athletic identity and having a physical identity, but we subscribe to beliefs based on oversimplified stock characters as if life is just a series of choices with exactly two options. Entertaining a third would be akin to betrayal rather than an expression of individuality. So more and more kids are either picking a team, or sitting out completely.
We have reinforced this because we haven’t found a balance between motivating teenagers to be healthy and harming self-esteem through “shaming.” Rather than pushing students to be the best they can be academically and physically, we often offer a balm of self-assurance that can lead to stagnation rather than healthy reflection which feeds a desire to care about growth more than mere comfort. We show and tell them their plights and feelings are real more than we show them ways to move forward and improve the situation. Helping students recognize and explore their circumstances is important, but not nearly as much as helping them address and improve their circumstances.
In neglecting to do so, we deprive kids of the ability to empower themselves with the confidence, mental and physical health that come from a physical lifestyle, not just participation in a sport. The benefits of being healthy have been criminally underreported during the pandemic. The only hope came from what the talking heads said. Lost was the simplicity of cutting sugar and getting 10,000 steps per day, which could have been replicated during lockdown in the form of air squats or pushups. But it was hardly suggested and someone with no physical identity or baseline exercise routine was stuck inside with little hope and no physical habit to help them through.
It is absurd to assume that participation in athletics dooms boys to become toxically masculine men and the solution would then be to not participate. Note: It is also ridiculous to label hunters the same way. The road from forager (a pursuit often linked to moral superiority) to hunter, is much shorter than the road from hunter to psychopath. It’s not about keeping the population in standing-army-ready shape, it’s about caring about what we say we do (the health of kids) and addressing it. We are more out of shape, prone to chronic illness and depressed than ever, and that was before the pandemic.
Sure, the physical education program in schools is a shadow of what it was and it’s probably good that the days of non-stop dodgeball are over. But the educational system can’t teach all the books, teach all the history, teach all the math, teach all the health and fill in every other need as though the assumption is that no students have parents. The gaps must be filled by social norms that incentivize healthy lifestyles, not assume that everyone who works out is attempting to keep alive some distorted version of masculinity. Losing weight by cutting sugar, eating real food and exercising is not an expression of self-hate. People who exercise are not shallow, insecure people attempting to live up to an impossible standard. Some are, sure, but to make those sort of blanket assumptions and ignore the health risks of a sedentary lifestyle is teaching teenagers to become at-risk adults.
This is not a situation in which the only way to win is not to play. In fact, that’s the only way to lose. We don’t have to push teenagers to put on a uniform, but we have to encourage them to at least get in the game.
