There is a link between the Swedish welfare and why the Swedes are so obsessed with being fit. Lundagård’s columnist Satomi Miyata has analyzed the Swedish model in a different way in this week’s column.
“Swedes are obsessed with being fit.” Has this thought ever come to your mind as a non-Swede?
I don’t particularly enjoy the moment when foreigners say “Japanese people are …” However, when I rather tried to “embrace” such overgeneralization of Japanese people, I saw some truth to it. The problem is that they were very often understood without relevant explanation for them. Here, I try my best in making relevant explanation for this generalization of “Swedes are obsessed with being fit” as a non-Swede.
Being overtaken by Swedes in shiny sporty leggings running and shelves of protein-related products at supermarkets such as cottage cheese marketed for “sporty” people or milk with 50 percent extra protein might help you to reflect on this matter. Or is the fact that you rarely see any obese people just enough to have you on my side? A gym located in central part of Lund called “Fitness 24Seven”, which is literally open 24/7, might also enlighten your view especially when you think about the average closing hour of shops in Lund. This was personally surprising because even in Tokyo, my hometown which some people like to call “ a city that never sleeps”, you don’t find many gyms with 24/7 opening hours.
Even if I might have pushed you a little too hard by listing things that would only support my potentially two-edged sword generalization, I still see a value in searching for what is there that encourages people to make a certain decision? Living in a more modern world than people would have ever dreamt of, you feel you are free from any restrictions, but your decisions are actually as much restricted within cultural context as before although cultural context can change over time.
Sweden is a welfare state where many people agree to pay high taxes in exchange for social security and welfare. To take a very simplified example, Swedes could eat as much as they want and be unfit because the Swedish welfare system with well-structured safety-net and medical care basically enables them to.However, what I am witnessing here so far completely contradicts Swedes eating cottage cheese and taking protein, or almost feeling threatened by the need of constant exercise illustrates otherwise.
Living in a country where people can easily lean, they are expected to be self-constraint and self-reliant so that the welfare system can be maintained. This instantly dragged me to one question, “what is it that forces people to be self-reliant?” Indulging myself in search of this question almost gave me a pleasure emotionally reexperiencing my childhood all of which time I spent annoying teachers with “why” questions. The only difference was that I had to go against myself this time. It is always nice to be an annoying player rather than an annoyed player in this sort of game.
The answers to such annoying yet triggering questions is always as simple yet vague as they have always been. In this case, it was “people’s eyes”(at least I believe this is the case). In Sweden, becoming a receiver of public welfare service means that you instantly become dependent of neighbors literally living right next door to you since all the expenses for public service are shared among all the Swedes through taxation. In other words, Swedish society is always out there to give an accusatory look on people who abuse the system. Such pressure creates the idea of “the ideal average Swede” which every citizen is expected to share, and I believe this idea can be embodied in many different ways including their constant engagement in being fit.
I feel fulfilled with my conclusion for now probably with a little satisfactory face that little annoying kid always makes after he annoyed his teachers with loads of questions. But I am sure some oppose me on the simple nature of my argument like the teachers shouting in their heads “life is not that simple!”,but pretending like an “adult”. If so, why don’t you start your own investigation by first signing up for “Fitness 24seven” and going there in the middle of the night? You also get to do some workout you would otherwise never be motivated to.Isn’t this what you call “win-win situation”?
