women and exercise

[supertinks]

There is an article on the BBC news website today about how women aren't doing enough exercise to be healthy (report is here). Apparently we don't have enough decent rolemodels to encourage us to be fit and sporty, because the only female role models we have are WAGs, models and actresses who are all to skinny. Apparently we are all brainwashed by the media into believing that its better to be unhealthily thin than to be healthily trim and fit.

There is also a debate on the BBC's Have Your Say boards, which I have been reading with interest this morning. The general consensus on there is that PE lessons in school were so awful, humiliating, degrading and unmotivating that this is the reason that most women aren't interested in doing sport. There's also a lot of crap on there about how women are too busy doing housework and looking after kids etc to have the time to do any sort of exercise.

Now, I remember PE in school, it wasn't fun, there was never enough time (one hour a week, which included time for changing in and out of kit etc), and the teachers only ever focussed on the kids who were good enough to be in the school teams. There was little variety, you played hockey and netball in winter, cross country running and gymnastics in spring and in the summer you played rounders and did a little bit of athletics (running, hurdles, long jump, high jump, shotput and javelin were the treats we had in store in secondary school). The focus was always on picking the right people to be in the school teams, on competetive team sports, on winning. You were made to feel embarrassed and stupid if you were too slow/not talented enough.

You may be thinking "yeah, but look at you, I bet you were on all the school teams etc cos you're obviously sports-inclined" but you'd be wrong. I hated it. Was never picked for the netball team because most of the girls in our school played for the county (I once played for the school B team and the school C team. I mean, how embarrassing is it to say you had to be in the C team??). I was useless at hockey. I would have loved to have played rugby, but girls weren't allowed.

Outside school I rode my bike all the time, ran round lots with my mates, roller-blading, we played football on the school fields in the evenings/weekends. We kicked rugby balls about on the training pitch over the road. I did ballroom dancing when I was much younger as well.

By the time I was in sixth form, I did very little 'sports', by the time I was in Uni I did none (and was eating atrociously). LARP probably counts as exercise but probably doesnt count when you consider all the booze and burgers and snacks you consume at an event!

Its only since I left uni, starting eating properly again, bought myself a new bike and become motivated to change that I've started doing sport again. At the moment its not working just right because I have no proper routine, but that will change hopefully very soon, when I sort myself out again. So if we look ahead a couple of weeks, my weekly regime will include:
1 hour swimming
1 hr 15 mins cycling
30 mins hardcore cardio gym exercise
30 mins more relaxed fat-burning gym exercise
1-2 hours rock climbing.
Which is approximately 4-5 hours exercise a week. They recommend 2 and a half hours (30 mins, 5 times a week) so I think I'm doing pretty good there.

The odd thing to note there I think is that not a single one of those activities is a team sport. I may be tempted, when I have more money and time, to take up something like badminton or squash, but even thats just a nice activity I'll be sharing with Jamie, and not a team sport. Also I may investigate something like Yoga or Pilates, because there's a place that does classes not too far from home, but its expensive so we'll have to see.

I really do think school PE has erased any desire I had to partake in team sport activity.

So, on to the point of this excessive ramble... I want to know from you guys (not just women, although that was the original prompt) whether or not you think you do enough exercise, and why that might be. What was PE like in your school?

I'd do some sort of poll but I'm cheap and don't pay for livejournal, so you'll just have to make up your own answers :-)