Dave Rodney’s tax incentives for “fitness”: Dave, please read this.

There is too much happening these days- Kawa Espresso Bar had its last pre-opening inspection and may inshallah be opening, for real, tomorrow; tomorrow is also my department’s annual end-of-year “international dinner,” and as head of the social events committee this is my baby and we’re having it at Mt Everest’s Kitchen, which is one of the few Nepalese restos in North America, and I am terrified that something is going to go horribly wrong (I’m like that); we’re off the see Kids in the Hall at the Jack Singer the day after that (third show for me, and their first appearance ever, as a troupe, in Calgary); a bunch of hapless stingrays died at the Calgary Zoo; the province just eliminated its much-vaunted system of regional health boards; California just kinda-sorta legalized same sex marriage (until a referendum nixes that- don’t start partying now, kids); hundreds of thousands have recently died in natural disasters in China and Myanmar… whew. Add to all this our finally FINALLY resurgent spring (27 today, 28 tomorrow and Saturday! We got our split-type wall-mounted air conditioner charged up, with wall mounts in the living room and our bedroom, and we actually got to run it today), and there’s a lot to talk about.

Thing is, I’m sick. I felt a tiny bit under the weather on Saturday and then got knocked on my ass with fever late in the day, then didn’t have any real noticeable symptoms after than aside from feeling just “off,” and then starting yesterday came THE COUGH. Tickly, annoying, non-stop, and really, really aggravating with/of my asthma. I’ve been through this before and sleep is almost impossible; it feels like being smothered and is scary as hell. So I’m thinking about health, mine and health in general.

See, I’ve been working out more aggressively than I’d been in a long while over the last few months, and what spurred me on was the fact that, at 5′10″ and about 215 pounds, I was technically “obese” per the definition in the BMI. Now that was down from my peak of about 220 at, of all imperfect places, my 20 year college reunion in June 2006, but still nothing to celebrate. A BMI of 30 is obese. I’d moreover have to get down to 174, a weight I last had at around 24, to be “normal.” Well, “normal” ain’t gonna happen for me, but with a little behaviour modification in regard to eating and fitting in some resistance stuff (I can do standing curls with 25 pound dumbbells now, lots of them, 16 a set- I’ve never been able to do that), I’m happy to be under the “obese” bar with a little room to spare. I now weigh 205 on a good day, and I’m not actively trying to lose; just happy to stay here.

Add to this little biological victory the fact that all the results from my last medical exam, a few weeks ago, were stellar. My blood pressure was the lowest it’s been from a doctor’s reading (home is always, always lower for me) since the 8th grade. Lipids are great. Not a trace of diabetes, and since I’m post-40, I got a PSA (prostate specific antigen) screening too, and it’s perfect. So based on, among other things, my metabolic fitness, I am the picture of health. I try to eat right, with increasing amounts of fish in my diet over the last few years, and get plenty of exercise. I don’t and never again will have the body of Steve Carrell (who actually has a great body), never mind Brad Pitt, and my body FAT percentage is embarrassingly high, but no matter. I’m healthy, really healthy.

And I don’t belong to a gym.

Which brings me to the post topic. Conservative MLA Dave Rodney, who was an accomplished mountain climber and generally uber-fit dude before entering politics, is a good guy. He was the first to spearhead a provincial smoking ban (part of the post-Ralph-Klein set of miracles that we thought we’d never in Alberta) and is one of those small-l liberal Tories that make life bearable here. But I have to take him to task for his well-intentioned private member’s bill to give adults tax breaks of up to $1500 to take fitness programs or join health clubs, and a big push is, for some reason, around team sports activities.

Calgary blogger Maureen Flynn-Burhoe does a superb job of dissecting many of the problems with the bill at her blog, and I’ll let those challenges speak for themselves. My issues come down to three:

First, nobody has to join a gym to become and remain fit. I hear this all the time: “I don’t have time to get to the gym,” or “there’s not a gym convenient for me,” or even “I can’t afford a gym,” as if “gym” and “fitness” were coterminous and equivalent. They’re not, and it’s a guarantee for too many people that they’ll never undertake any exercise at all (never mind becoming “fit”) if they adopt this mindset.

Second, merely JOINING a gym and accruing those tax breaks does not guarantee fitness. Not even close. Gyms sell memberships anticipating, and rightly so, that most of those members will rarely, even never, sully the facilities. That’s how they make money. I myself have shelled out hundreds for gym memberships that I stopped using. Add to this the fact, tendentious as it sounds, that a lot of gyms are simply not healthy places. I was turned off the last two that I joined because of the presence of muscle freaks (not “healthy” members but appearance-addled narcissists) who were, in many and maybe most cases, using the gym and their network of muscleheads to buy and sell steroids. THAT is not healthy; in fact it’s dangerous and the antipode of health. This is a terrible environment, and I can say at 44 that I hate gym culture. Of course not all gyms are like that (Brian goes to the Talisman Centre, which is city-managed and a much less creepy space), but this bill doesn’t adjudicate among them. If I join a gym specifically because I know that I’ll meet a lot of “juicers” there, then I get a tax break. That’s terrible.

Third and finally, this bill is not about outcomes. It takes the front end into account and rewards people for taking the INITIAL step but doesn’t consider, at all, health per se and doesn’t give any additional or primary incentive at all for people to get healthy. If we want to give tax breaks with the goal of lessening the social burden of health costs, then let’s reward people for being healthy, not for joining gyms. I got a medical exam; I lost some weight; I saw my blood pressure go down without medication; I have pretty big biceps these days. I’m not asking for a tax break (I’m one of those socialist weirdos who’s happy to pay taxes, in Canada at least where they go for the public good), but if anybody deserves a pat on the back for trying to be healthy, it’s me. And that has nothing whatsoever to do with joining a gym.