It improves cardio-vascular health, helps control obesity, fends off osteoporosis and depression. And by making us healthier, it saves the NHS money. Virtually all the literature cited in support of the idea that sport is good for us is not actually about sport, but about physical activity. Sport and physical activity are not the same thing. Physical activity is walking to work or in the countryside, doing the gardening, or walking upstairs.
Sport is about competition.
It is about being better than others, about pushing oneself to the limits. The cost is paid in injuries. At the professional level, sport is a more violent and dangerous occupation than mining, oil drilling or deep sea fishing and, even at lower levels, injuries are commonplace. According to the Sports Council there are each year in England and Wales an estimated 29.7 million sports injuries. Sports injuries are, as one text on sports injuries put it, 'The Unthwarted Epidemic'.