More than 12 million spectators on average followed the French team’s matches during the Football World Cup – up to 20 million for the semi-final on July 14 against Spain. They admire players capable of stringing together accelerations, defensive retreats, duels and high-intensity races for more than 90 minutes. They marvel at bodies trained for years to push their limits.
And yet, almost never has physical activity – as defined by the WHO, namely one hour of activity per day for young people and 30 minutes for adults, all at a moderate intensity – occupied such a small place in our daily lives. According to the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (ANSES), 95% of French people have an insufficient level of physical activity.
We have moved from a society where physical activity was incorporated into daily life to one where it has become a scheduled activity between two periods of inactivity.
Stillness sets in
The contradiction is striking. At the same time as we celebrate bodies in action, where we applaud athletes who run more than ten kilometers per match, we accumulate hours in front of screens, on transport or behind our desks. We have never made movement so sacred while allowing immobility to take hold, despite the enthusiasm aroused by the Paris Olympics in 2024 or the visible enthusiasm for certain forms of practice, such as running.
This paradox is not a simple individual inconsistency. It reveals a profound transformation of our societies.
Physical engagement has not lost its value. On the contrary, we continue to associate it with health, youth, increased life expectancy, perseverance, cooperation and surpassing oneself. If footballers fascinate so much, it is because they accomplish what our lifestyles make more rare every day: intense and continuous mobilization of the body.
At the same time, our environment reduces ordinary opportunities to move. We work more in front of screens, we travel by car, we order remotely what we previously went to get on foot. Technical progress thus creates an unprecedented situation: never has it been so easy to live with so little demand on your body.
An object of contemplation
Added to this development is another difficulty. Part of the traditional sporting offer remains organized around fixed schedules, regular commitment, competition and lasting affiliation, even though this organization responds less and less to the expectations and lifestyles of part of the population. Many then end up gradually abandoning all sporting activity.
The Football World Cup highlights this development. During a match, we contemplate what is gradually disappearing from our daily lives. The races, changes of pace, accelerations, jumps, contacts and repeated efforts become a spectacle. Our societies have not stopped celebrating the movement. They gradually moved it from everyday life and lived experience towards an object of contemplation.
Perhaps this is the true irony of this competition. The more we admire athletes capable of extraordinary physical feats, the more likely we are to view movement as belonging to others. As if running, playing or sweating were now the responsibility of professionals, while our role was limited to watching.
Moving from show to practice
However, this inactivity goes far beyond just the health issue. In France, its socio-economic cost is estimated by France Stratégie at nearly 140 billion euros per year, between health expenses, productivity losses and premature deaths. But its consequences are not only measured in euros.
Physical activity develops social skills, strengthens self-esteem, improves psychological well-being and, among young people, promotes learning and academic success. Bringing more physical activity back into daily life is therefore not only a public health issue. It is also an investment in human capital, social cohesion and economic performance.
The Football World Cup can leave us with much more than the bitter disappointment of not having seen the Blues play in the final. Its greatest victory would be to transform the admiration aroused by the players into the desire to act. Making more room for physical and sporting activity throughout school, rethinking clubs so that they meet today’s aspirations and creating public spaces that invite walking, running or playing can give everyone the means to move from spectacle to practice.
The most beautiful gestures that we applaud today will only have real impact if, tomorrow, they put our own bodies back into action. It is on this condition that we will avoid, to use a phrase dear to the sociologist David Le Breton, that our society “drys up”.
About opinions
This text is signed by a guest author. He expresses his opinion and not that of the editorial staff. Our Live section aims to allow the expression of pluralism on religious, social and current affairs subjects, and to encourage dialogue, according to the criteria set by our editorial charter.
Share your opinion in comments or by writing to us at: readers.lacroix@groupebayard.com
