Why Don’t Women Exercise? (And No, it’s Not Laziness)

Having time to exercise should be a right, not a privilege

Exercising makes me really, really happy. So why is it so hard to find time for it?

A recent study found that nearly half of British women don’t do regular exercise. I wish I wasn’t one of them…

Sporty. It’s a word that still sends vague shivers down my spine even though I’m now someone whose idea of an ultimate treat is to go for a swim in a river or attend a yoga class. ‘Sporty’ reminds me too much of excruciating PE lessons spent huffing and puffing my way around a field in the cold being shouted at while I absolutely failed at whatever team sport we were being forced to ‘play’ that day. I say ‘play’ but school sport for me was never, ever fun.

The message I received when I was young was that either you were naturally sporty and then you would be on a school sports team or you weren’t and therefore sport wasn’t for you. I never once thought back then that exercise was for me.

I only really started exercising once I was in my first ‘proper’ job after university, thanks to a colleague who went swimming every morning and arrived in the office beaming, serene and smelling of chlorine while I felt like I was barely holding it together, overwhelmed by anxiety and stress. I asked if I could join her and very quickly, and in spite of the fact I could barely swim, it changed my life (and inspired my first novel).

It didn’t take long for me to get that exercise didn’t have to be a chore or in any way competitive. It could be calm and gentle and a way to clear your head. Why had no one told me that before?

I now think back on my teenage years and wish that I’d been encouraged and supported to find ways to move my body more. That I was made to think that even though I wasn’t naturally sporty, exercise could still be a part of my life.  

I also wish that I’d grown up in a world that doesn’t make women feel so utterly awful about our bodies. As a teenager I avoided pools completely because it meant having to wear a swimsuit. I didn’t like exercising in general because of what I would have to wear and how I might look.

Swimming helped to change that. You only have to spend about two seconds in the communal changing room at a swimming pool to realise that we are all wonderfully, fantastically unique and also that no one cares what you look like in a swimsuit. They are there to swim, not to analyse you in the same way you analysed yourself in the mirror that morning.

After swimming came running (slowly and badly) and a whole bunch of different types of exercise that I tried simply because they seemed fun. The fact that I was exercising was secondary to the fact I was doing a fun activity, something that I think is so often missing in the way we talk about exercise.

Yes, exercise is vital for our physical and mental wellbeing but it can also be hilarious and so, so joyful.

Like the roller skating course I did where I had to slide across the floor of the rink on my bum to reach the group in the first lesson because I remembered as soon as I put the skates on that I am uncoordinated at the best of times, let alone with wheels on my feet. Or the time I did a ‘Dance Like Beyoncé’ class and definitely did not dance like Beyoncé.

Some of my happiest memories now involve some form of exercise. The icy lake swim where a roar escaped as I crashed into the water. Kayaking down the River Lea with the sun on my face. Running along a ridgeline in South Wales in the snow.

But as much as I love exercise and the way it makes me feel, the reality is that for the last year I have done very, very little exercise. Since having my son, I have found it incredibly hard, at times impossible, to get back to exercise.

Partly it’s been a physical thing. There’s this idea that after your 6-week check-up you’ll be given the ‘green light’ by a doctor and be straight back out there. But it took a long time for my body to feel ready for anything more strenuous than pushing a pram up the hill.

Getting used to my post-birth body has felt so disorientating. Why were even the most basic movements challenging when I used to do burpees and (‘whispers quietly’) actually enjoy them? I know that the answer is obviously because I grew and brought into the world (via a very gruelling birth) a not-so-small baby. But I think there’s such a notion of ‘bouncing back’, propelled by unrealistic social media images and celeb ‘success stories’ that post-birth women just aren’t given the support or gentleness they need. And it can knock your confidence so much that you don’t even feel able to try.

I’m lucky that aside from the ‘typical’ post-birth complaints (pelvic physio, people. All women should be given it as standard after birth) the barriers I face to exercise are more mental than physical. But I know so many women who are held back from exercise because of chronic illness and health issues - issues that are exacerbated by the late diagnosis and general lack of care that so many women receive, often because their health is simply not taken seriously.

Then there’s just the time. For many reasons, like so many women I am my son’s main caregiver.

Some days finding the time to brush my teeth feels challenging, let alone having a free hour to go for a run.

Then there’s the guilt that we are told we should feel – this idea that it is somehow selfish to take time for yourself when really it is not only important but vital.

There have been days when I could weep with the yearning to just put my swimsuit on and go for a swim but I am confined to the house looking after our son while I wait for my husband to get home from the office. After a full day of childcare (and work, and laundry, and tidying up), often by the time he does make it back I feel too completely and utterly spent to make it outside.

The days I do manage to fit in some exercise – like the run I went on this week through the countryside near my house in Somerset as the sun set over the corn fields – I always feel better for it. That sense of freedom and of doing something for myself is immense, particularly because it is so fleeting.

Having the time, energy and access to exercise should be a right, not a privilege.

Yet for so many women like me we have to fight to carve out the time to go for a run or a swim or a yoga class. We’re just so busy and so tired. Often it’s just too exhausting to even try.

So many of my friends say the same thing – that they would actually love to do more exercise but just can’t find the time, or the support to access exercise that feels right for their bodies.

Something’s going really badly wrong if so many women can’t find the time and support to make themselves a priority.

I am determined to get back to regular exercise one day because I know I am a better and happier person for it. Because it brings me joy and keeps me sane. And because I think I deserve those things. We all do.

I’d love to hear your exercise story. What were your experiences like of PE and exercise as a young person? If you don’t exercise regularly now, what is the biggest thing stopping you? Is there anything that would help you? And if you do exercise regularly, what do you get from it and how do you make it work?