To go on living

I used to be a member of a gym. After a couple of months I couldn’t remember why I’d joined, so I quit. Those hours I spent on the treadmill are lost forever. Unlike team sports, going to the gym has no social dimension. But health bores are everywhere, and their struggle to be healthy has itself assumed unhealthy dimensions. Why are people so obsessed with exercise and healthy living? Mark Edmundson thinks that ‘health and well-being are now simply ends in themselves. We want to go on living in order to go on living, and not for much more.’