Our expanded concept of sport has turned our immediate living environment into a sports facility, just as it has made it possible to treat and plan pedestrian and bicycle paths as sports facilities. This broad concept of sport is linked with the changes taking place in our environment and in our understanding of the world we live in. Modern advanced medicine can measure almost anything and thereby define ideal norms for health. Those who do not fit into these norms are ill. A great deal of what used to be considered normal is now regarded as illness.
Western people see it as their duty to their employer to be as healthy as possible.
Our culture sets great store by health and healthy lifestyles. It has even been claimed that, in our secularised society, health has taken the place of religion. A breach against healthy life is a sin, which can be atoned through sport. This way of thinking easily leads to health racism, and we attack vulnerable sinners and demand that they get moving and exercising - to save their lives and souls. The foregoing does not mean, however, that the value placed on health in our society would be a bad thing.