Opinion: Tech means we’re probably far less fit these days
© Tim Scrivener I like cake. Looking back over my previous articles, it gets a mention in almost every single one.
Yet today I’m accompanied by carrot sticks and hummus, which isn’t quite hitting the spot.
Battenberg may not be in the performance-enhancing drug category, but it gives me the sugar rush I need to finish an article. However, I’m going cold turkey.
See also: Colostrum will be key in two-tier calf market
About the author
Last week, after a non-eventful day of straw-carting, one of our team, who is only in his late 30s with a young family, collapsed at home and needed to be resuscitated by his father, twice.
Thanks to our incredible NHS, he’s back home and hopefully on the mend, but it scared the living daylights out of all of us.
While we wait to see what went wrong, it’s got me thinking how our health is everything.
Don’t worry, this isn’t a Farmers Weekly version of a “Live, Laugh, Love” quote people hang on their living room wall (in my experience, the people who buy those things rarely do any of them), but more a gentle reminder that we all need to look after ourselves.
Farming isn’t what it once was. The speed of change over the 25 years in which I’ve been involved has been staggering.
When I initially helped Dad, the first daily job used to be to push out 8x6ft round bales every morning. I say round, but as they’d been stacked outside, they were more hexagonal, with an eight-inch crust.
It took every ounce of effort to get them moving, at which point they’d often disintegrate into one big heap, which was then spread properly with a fork.
The physical jobs continued until breakfast, which was substantial and often fried, but was always well justified.
Today, the same job takes a fraction of the time and effort. Hooking the spreader onto the telehandler is about as physical as it gets.
The rest is done with a push of a thumb and the power of hydraulics. Half a Weetabix and three raisins for breakfast would probably put you into calorific surplus.
While bedding is just one example, there is barely a single job that hasn’t been simplified or eradicated with the power of technology.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d never choose to revert, but we all have to be mindful that we aren’t kidding ourselves into thinking our jobs are more physical than they really are.
The double whammy is that while technology has reduced our physical load, it’s also ladened us with additional mental burdens.
While Dad did dabble with a mobile phone back in the early 90s, once the day’s plans had been set, he was rarely contacted until he came home later in the day.
Now, the constant rings and bings are enough to drive you mad, along with the expectation that you are contactable 24/7.
It’s easy to end the day feeling completely exhausted, having barely lifted a finger. Which is a recipe for a health disaster.
So, I’m taking a leaf out of Will Evans’s book and making time for exercise, not only to give the body a workout, but also as it helps the brain process the day’s events.
While I’m unlikely to make it to the Olympics (or even the end of the drive), if it means I can justify a guilt-free fondant fancy, then I’m all in.