Exercise is a topic that has generated a great deal of contention. Some people believe that individuals should be responsible for doing enough exercise, while others hold an assumption that governments should encourage people to exercise more. Although both schools of thoughts hold merit, I find the latter one more convincing and will examine two perspectives in this essay.
On the one hand, regular exercise should be encouraged by the governments mainly for the country’s health and better workforces. As all individuals start exercising, they can avoid lifestyle-related diseases and become healthier, leading to contribution to the productive workforce as a whole. For example, Vietnam is known for having one of the lowest obesity rates in the world, as many employees always go to the gym after work, and the elderly may go for a daily early morning walk. Since doing exercise can make the population’s overall well-being better and create more workforces, governments should strongly encourage every individual to exercise more frequently.
Supporters from the opposing view, on the other hand, claim that it is individual responsibility to exercise due to the intrinsic motivation behind their exercising and daily habits. This is because people are hardly persuaded from outside factors and intrinsic motivation can help them start exercising to be fit themselves. For instance, individuals are still blissfully ignorant when they see the reminders to exercise outside. As a result, intrinsic motivation plays an essential role in everyday habits and choices, including exercise.
In conclusion, although individual responsibility to exercise helps people get fitter, it requires a huge amount of intrinsic motivation to do so, and governments’ strong encouragement assists citizens with more productive workforces and whole population’s good health condition. I firmly believe that the latter view is still the more convincing approach.