I say this as someone that loves working from home, but before I did so I would get thousands of steps in every day running towards the tube in London and around all the platforms. Dunno, maybe the positive health benefits of the steps are outweighed by how polluted the air in London (and likely even more so the tube) is.
But getting less steps in every day due to WFH is a real problem.
It is! The solution is to walk more and everyone gets to decide how, we're all grown ups.
6-8 weeks later, I wondered why my back hurt so damn much.
I had no idea how much my office’s slow elevators and 5 flights of stairs had been helping, had to manually add that back into my life.
“Come back to the office”
“We’ll be resuming periodic Active Shooter drills”
My home's policy is the active shooter gets shot immediately until they are no longer a threat.
It really is a weird reality we live in. You can't have all of the above and not be subjecting innocent people to violent criminals.
EDIT: In other words, you want dense cities? Then you need exemplary policing (both in terms of respecting citizens and keeping them safe).
You don't want police? Then people need to defend themselves and protect themselves.
You don't want people defending themselves in urban areas? Then you either have to have exemplary policing or less urban areas.
Commuting is also the most dangerous thing the average person does.
My wife only commutes in 4 days a month, and we still have dashcam footage from multiple close calls.
Recently a pickup truck cut someone off and hit their car, then proceeded to flee during rush hour. In traffic doing about 20MPH he swerves though a hair away from my wife at over 60MPH. She asked me to check the footage because the wind force was so strong she wasn't sure he didn't graze her.
Everyone looks at you crazy if you want to do an extreme sport, or even something like dirtbiking, but on my old commute there'd be 2-3 major accidents a week, a death every week or two, and nobody bats an eye. All so I can log into a data centre in North Virginia, that's nowhere near me.
Not only is it unpaid, it actually costs the employee money. In the worst case you need a car + the insurance, fuel and maintenance costs associated. In the best case you still need to pay for public transportation.
> Nor do people want to spend £10+ a day on food and drinks which they have in their fridge, at home.
Eating out regularly is also hazardous to your health. In my experience and opinion there is no such thing as a healthy dining option. There are varying degrees of poisonous; some options are certainly better than others; but if you're trying to be strict with your diet then forget eating out daily.
Then add the stress of a commute, workplace hazards, risks associated with commuting (I have a ZERO chance of getting killed in a car accident when I'm not travelling in a car), risks associated with communicable diseases and there is a case to be made that working in an office is actually hazardous to your health.