It is always a special few weeks when the Olympics are on, it is the end result of 4 years of pure dedication put in by the athletes to reach the pinnacle of their sport. Congratulations to all the Aussie athletes, it is pretty special to reach that level regardless of the result at the Olympics. Unfortunately everyday the focus from the media and general public was to bag our athletes for not winnig!! WTF are they serious, they competed in the Olympics.
There was a lot of rubbish talk going on by the Australian public directed at supposedly poor results at the Olympics, and by the sound of this the rubbish talk is also a result of the rubbish food these baggers are eating. While we may have been down a bit on the medal rank another more serious rank we are doing great in leading the world in is the obesity and chronic illness rank. We are way up there fighting for top spot. I am sure a high percentage of the Olympic game critics are contributing well to these rankings!!
During the week I read a really interesting but not surprising article on the correlation between Olympic performance and a nation's health. The correlation is there is absolutely no correlation. For example if you take Finland they finished the game with one single silver medal and two bronze medals but they are ranked the 2nd happiest nation on earth with general good health. Then take USA and Australia, the USA winning the medal tally and Australia 10th. Both countries have an epidemic of obesity, chronic illness, family breakdowns and youth suicide.
Those people who were bagging our athletes over the 2 weeks of the Olympics, athletes who have reached the highest level of their sport should put the same focus into trying to reduce our obesity and increase physical activity, if they put as much effort into this as they did bagging the Olympians we may have holistically a heaalthy nation.
Heres a tip to our great supporters that kick us while we are down. Don't worry to much about our Olympians they have done just fine, why don't we focus on promoting and placing healthy programs into grassroots, into schools, youth sports, community groups etc, that way we can become a healthier nation physically and mentally and the flow on effect will probably be better Olympians.