Will exercise protect you from COVID?
Or is exercise simply a marker for privilege, wealth, and resources?
A new paper making the rounds, Associations of Physical Inactivity and COVID-19 Outcomes Among Subgroups, purports that the more exercise you do, the less severely COVID will hit if it catches you.
I hope it’s true, I exercise a ton.
But let’s unpack this a tiny bit. The why I exercise so much is because I believe it will provide life to my years if not years to my life. The how I exercise so much is because I’m extremely privileged. And while no doubt there will be exceptions, regularly finding large heaps of time as well as possessing the resources to intentionally and perpetually prioritize it in the name of health is a luxury most don’t share.
Privilege isn’t simply monetary (though no doubt that’s huge). Personal and family health and caregiving responsibilities, severity of other medical conditions (impacting pain, energy, fatiguability, motivation, interest, etc), and of course time and more likely play important roles in how much exercise is obtained at any time let alone during the first 17 months of a novel pandemic.
It’s difficult for me to imagine those same privileges wouldn’t improve someone’s chances of with COVID.
Would a parent of a child with complex needs or poor mental or physical health be able to seek care quickly? Or someone with severe depression? Or someone without sick leave, or living paycheque to paycheque? Or someone caring for an isolated frail elderly parent? I could go on.
Also would someone with privilege and resources have an easier time advocating for and accessing care, and also enjoy greater attention when care was sought?
As to whether any of this was addressed by the authors of this study? Well yes, a tiny bit.
While they don’t attempt to control at all for the severity of existing medical conditions on COVID course (just presence or absence of a few conditions), they do give a nod to social inequities associating with greater risks of adverse outcomes. As to their recommendation therein? Find ways to get those living with social inequity exercising. Really.
After acknowledging inequities they then state that public health leaders should consequently find ways to promote and provide exercise opportunities to those populations. There’s not even the suggestion of the possibility that exercise is just a marker for helpful health, wealth, and resources.
Reading the paper there was a surrogate marker for poverty in that they did ask about Medicaid status. What I found odd was that nowhere in the paper or the supplemental materials, did they state the number of people in this study who qualified for it.
Now this is not to say that I don’t believe exercise may have a protective effect if you catch COVID or any other disease. In fact I’d expect it to. But to gloss over the reality that social determinants of health both impact disease course as well as a person’s likelihood of regular exercise and promote this paper on its surface without their mention is performative ableism that further fuels the notion that public health is something within our individual control
What a good reminder that the time and resources to prioritize exercise in one’s life are a privilege! Thank you, Yoni Freedhoff!
Thank you Yoni for pointing this out. Having spent time as a single mom with very little money and a demanding job, I know that exercise is often totally out of reach for quite a number of reasons. And if there are any resources left for exercise, activities for our kids get prioritized.