Sports culture is so crazy. Why is it illegal for kids to smoke and drink and get tattoos, but we actively encourage sports that can cause lifelong injuries, while making almost no effort to promote any kind of low risk fitness, that doesn't make you feel so awful most people will just quit?

In some cases, those sports involve gaining over 300lbs, which seems like it would largely counteract any benefits of the excercise.

Although it does seem like there's a certain number of people with some kind of major psychological need to prove themselves to themselves and have some kind of way to measure their progress and know they are gaining strength every day, and for them sports might be better than the self destructive lifestyle they sometimes do if they get consumed by feeling like they're "not enough".

I would argue families prioritize sports over those activities even more so. I have direct family members that played D1 and professional sports, and it’s wild how high the level of commitment for non-pro track athletics has become since the 90’s-early 00’s.