Media Clipping – October 12, 2006, The Chronicle-Herald, Opinions

Hiking hills, and making public policy

By Jim Meek

YOU CAN sometimes climb a mountain, even if you're growing old gracelessly as one of Canada's nine million boomers.

I learned this the euphoric way on Sunday, when we climbed Franey Mountain.

This is a gem of a mountain, located just north of Ingonish in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

Franey's a short, steep climb – you ascend 300 metres over two kilometres or so. This means you handle more elevation on the hike up Franey than you do in the drive up Cape Smokey.

Once you get to the top of Franey, make sure you keep going until you reach the cliff 's edge. For there, you will be rewarded – first with vertigo, and then with a view.

Not just any view: Author Michael Haynes says the top of Franey offers the most spectacular vista in Nova Scotia.

On Sunday, eagles soared and swooped in the ravine below the cliff.

Beneath their wings, the Clydeburn River traces a winding westward line through its valley up to the Highland Plateau.

To the east, the Middle Head peninsula stretches past Keltic Lodge and into the Atlantic.

South of the lodge, Cape Smokey rises in the clear, cool, autumnal air just beyond the beach at Ingonish.

And on this early Sunday morning in October, the whole scene is sketched in a rich palette of fall leaves.

Now, it's a long way from Franey Mountain to public policy, but let me take you on this journey, too.

The health bureaucrats will tell you that Canadian boomers, who make up about 30 per cent of the population, are fat too young and old too soon.

We don't want to either die young or grow old, of course.
But the experts say we're likely to “ shuffle off this mortal coil" quicker than our parents did – because we're so darned sedentary.

We boomers also eat like pigs – or simply eat pigs.

I figure I ate a good portion of one myself at breakfast Sunday morning at Keltic Lodge. I couldn't stay away from the bacon, after choking down a four- course meal the night before.

All things considered, we boomers don't make for a happy health story.

In fact, one U. S. authority (Ken Dychtwald) promises us not mountaintop views but a “ pandemic of chronic disease, mass dementia, a care- giving crunch, conflict with other generations, and inadequate pensions."

And now that I'm piling on the grief, I'll add some homegrown evidence.

An estimated 70 per cent of Nova Scotians are at risk for heart disease. And according to one report conducted by GPI Atlantic, 50 per cent of us are inactive.

In short, we're slugs.

The GPI report, completed for the Heart and Stroke Foundation, even puts a price tag on our lifestyles. It estimates the “ total economic burden of physical inactivity in HRM … at over $ 68 million annually."

The province's Department of Health Promotion also is in the hectoring business, informing us that we're “ not active enough." And we spend too much “ time at desk jobs and in cars," while our kids watch TV or play video games.

Well, excuse me, but I'm a boomer and I just want to have fun.

So instead of yelling at me about my lifestyle, governments should help me do something about it. Build some real bike paths in Halifax – ones that actually go somewhere useful, like downtown to work.

Plan the city for pedestrians, not cars.

In short, why not subsidize exercise if it provides such a handsome profit to society and to the economy?

This would sure be cheaper than cardiac surgery.

Why do people climb Franey Mountain? Because it's a joy to do so.

And if you're lucky, you'll get there once a decade or so.

The trick is designing cities or communities in which it is easy to incorporate exercise into our daily lives.

Now I will admit that public policy seems to be moving in this direction – but so far, it's mostly cheap talk.

Yes, you can sometimes climb a mountain.

Most days, though, you just have to get to work.

And the policy makers could really claim a victory if they allowed us to get there safely – and pleasantly – on a bike, or on our feet.

Jim Meek is a freelance writer in Halifax. He also works for Bristol Communications as editor of The Inside Out Report, a quarterly journal based on public opinion research.