Charitable Thoughts for the New Year

I went to the swimming pool this morning before school. I do this three times a week because I like swimming and it is good for me. It is generally bad that the pigs who govern us have made energy artificially expensive, but the lower temperature of pool water suits me. If I want a shower, I step under hot water. When I swim, I expect the water to be cold. I also like the honesty of swimming. You cannot hide from yourself or others when you swim. You cannot buy swimming trunks to flatter you when there is nothing to flatter. You cannot adopt a posture that suggests virtues you do not possess. You step into the sight of others and your own consciousness in a pair of trunks and whatever you are is immediately obvious. If it were the custom to swim naked, it might be better, but I will settle for Speedo.

One of the boys from my year was there as well this morning. I will not name him, because my point at the moment is not personal cruelty. He was fat and visibly uncomfortable in his own skin. He kept his towel close in the changing room, and moved with the tense caution of someone who knows he is being looked at. I noticed him noticing me. I am not blind, and I am not modest about this. I have worked hard for the body I have, and it shows. There was admiration in his look, and something else behind it. This wasn’t so much resentment as embarrassment.

I am restraining myself from cruelty. I generally treat ugliness as a moral joke, and obesity as a kind of public theatre in which the punchline is early illness and death. I have not had any change of heart in this, but do not find it an interesting reaction at the moment. What struck me instead about that boy was how unnecessary his ugliness is. There is nothing wrong with him that cannot, in principle, be fixed. He is not deformed. He is not disabled. From what I observe of him in lessons, he is not notably stupid or mentally corrupt. He is simply the result of bad habits applied consistently over time.

Health and beauty matter. They are not ornaments. They are records. Your body is a ledger in which your daily decisions are written down with no concern for excuses. What you eat, how much you move, how often you sleep, and how little you lie to yourself, all appear on you in the end. That boy may not have yet reached the point of no return. But there is such a point, and it is coming soon. Beyond a certain age, intelligence that does not show up in the body is usually not intelligence at all, but verbal agility combined with indulgence.

Beauty, in this sense, is not about looking like a model or a film star. It is about proportion, tone, and ease of movement. It is about looking as though you belong in your body rather than being trapped inside it. People pretend this is subjective because admitting otherwise would require effort. It is not subjective. Healthy bodies converge on similar shapes for the same reason well-designed bridges converge on similar forms. Physics does not negotiate.

The cultivation of health is not mysterious. It has been obscured deliberately by an industry that profits from confusion, and by an administrative class and education system that works hard to produce broken adults. But the underlying rules are simple. Eat real food. Move your body against resistance. Do both regularly. Everything else is embroidery.

Diet comes first, because you cannot out-exercise bad eating. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or selling something. Real food means meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruit, and some dairy if you tolerate it. It does not mean packets, powders, or anything advertised as a lifestyle choice. Ultra-processed food is engineered to bypass satiety and reward systems. Eating it regularly is not a failure of willpower so much as a failure of judgement. Remove it, and appetite begins to behave again.

This does not require starvation or theatrical restriction. It requires cutting out sugar, seed oils, and constant snacking. Eat meals. Stop when you are full. If you are fat, you will not starve by eating less often. Your body has reserves. That is what the fat is.

Exercise comes next. Swimming is good, because it forces you to move everything and does not flatter weakness. So is lifting weights, because strength is the foundation of all other physical qualities. Walking is underrated, especially when done daily and without headphones. Team sports are optional. Discipline is not.

The point of exercise is not punishment. It is adaptation. The body responds to stress by becoming better able to handle it. This improves mood and concentration – sleep too – as reliably as it improves appearance. Many of the boys who complain of anxiety and low self-esteem would find both diminished if they spent less time eating rubbish and more time doing something physically difficult on purpose.

What struck me about the boy at the pool was not that he was ugly, but that he seemed to think this was fixed. That is the real damage done by modern culture. It tells people that their present condition is an identity rather than a problem to be fixed. It offers slogans instead of solutions and calls that kindness. It is not kind. It is cruel, because it traps people where they are.

Whatever I may have said yesterday, whatever I may say tomorrow, there is no shame in being out of shape. There is shame in deciding that improvement is impossible, or oppressive. The body is the most forgiving system you will ever deal with. Treat it properly for a few months and it responds with enthusiasm. Treat it properly for a few years and it will repay you every day.

This article is an expansion of what I said to that boy while we were showering and dressing. I do not know whether he will change anything. That is up to him. But there is nothing stopping him except habits he did not choose consciously and could abandon deliberately. Health and beauty are not privileges reserved for the lucky. They are outcomes produced by behaviour. Anyone intelligent enough to understand that is intelligent enough to act on it.