With a little help from your friends

The challenge of changing the culture around physical activity in our daily lives is enveloped within a twist of the "tragedy of the commons": while we may all benefit individually from incorporating more activity in our daily lives, setting up the environment where the right choices are rewarded is far too expensive for any one company, governmental agency, or organization to undertake because they won't see an individual benefit equal to their investment.

Not to oversimplify it, but that seems to be a primary issue that explains the overwhelming inertia we have regarding implementing an environment that supports active living. Those companies that profit from selling goods and services to active individuals (think retailers selling sporting goods, sporting apparel, fresh food, recreational items, etc.) already do so. But there hasn't been an equivalent industry emerging to profit from active environments that are inclusive of the public domain. And there yet has not risen the political will for the public realm to be re-engineered to accommodate active lives.

So, what are you going to do until the baby boomers have to give up the car keys and demand change? One alternative is to get good friends; friends who are already active. There is recent research (highlighted in a recent newspaper article) that delineates how social networks influence behavior. For instance, if you have a friend who became obese, your chances of becoming obese increased 57 percent.

I don't know if there the converse is true- that slim friends make us slimmer- but it seems that we are inexorably linked to our friends and we should get a little help from our friends and go out and walk, ride, dance, whatever- together.