The Jane Austen Diet by Bryan Kozlowski

Author:Bryan Kozlowski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Published: 2019-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

As for the more stationary bodies of Austenworld, Jane is equally clear about the consequences. “Ill health” and “a great deal of indolence” define Lady Bertram in Mansfield Park, her bum permanently plastered to the sofa throughout the novel. Another perpetual sitter, Mr. Woodhouse in Emma, looks and feels “a much older man” than he really is. “Without activity … of body,” a simple half-mile stroll is beyond his comprehension. It is “such a distance,” he mutters weakly, “I could not walk half so far.” Then there’s Persuasion, where we first meet Mary Musgrove “lying on the faded sofa,” and soon pick up on Austen’s hint that Mary’s frequent illnesses are a direct result of her “not being supposed a good walker.”

This was common knowledge circa 1800. Georgian doctors viewed the body as a sort of machine (the machina carnis, they called it) that needs regular movement to work properly.4 “There must be frequent motions,” said Joseph Addison in 1711, or the “engine” of the body is liable to rust up.5 It’s why Austen characters, people like Frank Churchill in Emma—who sit “still when he ought to move”—are always playing a risky game with their health.

It’s fascinating to witness how modern science has recently returned to that core belief. The very un-Regency phenomenon of seeing exercise as only that sweaty thing you do between this-and-that o’clock is entirely wrong. Moving more throughout the day is now regarded as markedly healthier than spending an exhausting hour at the gym after a full day of sitting. Your body is indeed a sort of machina carnis, a biological engine that runs best when you move it more frequently (not necessarily more vigorously)—a fact first “rediscovered” in 1953 when scientists in Britain observed that workers who stood or moved more throughout the day (i.e., train conductors on their feet collecting fares, postmen on their bikes delivering letters) had less coronary heart disease than workers with more sedentary jobs (bus drivers, office workers).6 Sitting for a prolonged period of time throughout the day (à la Lady Bertram) effectively shuts your body engine down: muscles stop firing, blood stops circulating properly, and the mechanisms that regulate healthy blood sugar and cholesterol levels deteriorate—all dramatically increasing your risk of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.7

“Sitting is the new smoking,” say umpteen-thousand articles published every year, no doubt a happy vindication for Mrs. Norris in Mansfield Park. “Idling away all” your time “upon a sofa” is “a very foolish trick.” But those articles are a bore, Mrs. Norris is a twit, and Austen, you’ll remember, never liked to “dwell on guilt and misery.” So let’s quickly turn to her antidote for all of this “idleness and folly”—the best ways to get moving with the best bodies of Austenworld. And it begins with nothing “beyond a walk.”

“I Walk: I Prefer Walking”

I won’t beat around the shrubbery. Everything happens on a walk in Jane’s novels: Darcy proposes to Elizabeth on a walk; Marianne meets Willoughby on a walk; Lucy Steele drops

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