[klyrs]

A cursory search indicates that the giant marshmallow looking haybales that modern farming produces are formed by a machine which you tow behind a tractor. I'm just a city gal, but how much of a workout is that, really?

Edit: also, why are we speculating on stereotypes and not consulting actual data collected on exactly this question? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7182355/

It seems that people living in rural areas are, on average, more sedentary than their urban counterparts, despite the overwhelmingly popular stereotype that rural folk are svelte and outdoorsy.

[mecsred]

It's a pretty significant workout. Hooking up, detaching, cleaning and maintaining a bailer is a lot more effort than even a good distance walk. The statistics you're quoting are more so due to the fact that most people in rural areas don't operate a bailer or really any farm machinery. Which showcases one of the problems with relying on "actual data" without having a good understanding of the situation.

[drawkward]

Yes "actual data " is the problem. You even point out yourself

>most people in rural areas don't operate...really any farm machinery"

Which would be consistent with that damn actual data showing that rural folk are more sedentary than urban folk, in aggregate or on average.

[forgetfreeman]

Except it really wouldn't, because it doesn't take into account any of the bog standard daily lived realities of being rural that include hunting and fishing, managing livestock, working in the trades, dealing with equipment, or hell even just keeping several acres mowed and maintained, all of which are dirt common activities for rural Americans. What, you think you get outside the city and everyone's sitting on their ass in a trailer park collecting welfare and working on their diabetes or something?

[klyrs]

> What, you think you get outside the city and everyone's sitting on their ass in a trailer park collecting welfare and working on their diabetes or something?

You're the one slinging data-defying stereotypes around. Believe it or not, "working in the trades" is something lotsa urban folk get up to, as with hunting and fishing, and boy howdy do urbanites love some huge lawns in their green spaces. Do you think urban grass just mows itself? No, cities hire urbanites for such jobs.

And, real talk. You made haybaling sound tough; I'll grant you that for lack of experience, but I've ridden a damn lawnmower and it's no great workout. And if my rural family is at all typical, mowing a lawn is a net positive in calories because riding a mower is occasion for a beer or six.

But the data says y'all are more sedentary and more obese on average than city dwellers. Now, I'm inclined to blame DDT exposure for the latter statistic, and reliance on cars for the former, but if you want to make some weird judgements about how folks are spending their time, that's on you.

[klyrs]

> most people in rural areas don't operate a bailer or really any farm machinery.

This was effectively the claim made in the top-level comment; I responded to somebody countering that with weird claims about baling as if that's a typical activity for rural residents to engage in. But it's not, according to you and according to the data. What problem do you think this is showcasing?

[mecsred]

The comment you made questions how much excersise operating a bailer involves, which is what I responded to. I don't see anything in your comment or the parent talking about how common that excersise is, which is why I offered it as an explanation of the incongruence between your dataset and your implication that bailing is effortless because it involves a machine.

[klyrs]

Well, I'll agree on one thing, weighing in

> without having a good understanding of the situation

does seem problematic.

[forgetfreeman]

And yet here you are.

[shiroiushi]

>The statistics you're quoting are more so due to the fact that most people in rural areas don't operate a bailer or really any farm machinery.

This is exactly the problem with some of these rural vs. urban debates. The pro-rural people will make claims about how important farmers are, etc., and seem to have some kind of romantic idea about what rural life is like, but the reality is that the vast majority of rural dwellers are not farmers, do not live any kind of "outdoorsy" life, and basically are people who are too poor or too anti-city to live in or closer to a city, and generally have a very sedentary and car-based lifestyle.

[forgetfreeman]

If by "romantic idea" you mean actual lived experience then ok.

[shiroiushi]

No, it's not actual lived experience. I came from the rural South, I know what it's like there. The people there are NOT farmers.

[forgetfreeman]

I'll be sure to tell my three uncles who raise pigs, tobacco, corn, soybeans, and peanuts the next time I see them that they aren't farmers. I should probably ask my cousins how they manage to find time to sit on their asses given their employment in the timber industry, ask my father what a sedentary ironworker even looks like, and then there's the minor issue of all the time I've spent working in the trades during the week and on heavy equipment on the weekends...

[shiroiushi]

So by your logic, because a handful of people are farmers, then everyone in rural areas is a farmer? Brilliant.

[forgetfreeman]

Clearly you've also never seen bailed straw, pine straw, or any of a number of other square baled products. Hell, you had to google round bales and still don't know what they're called. And yeah, not everyone has livestock, that was just tossed off the cuff as an example that the utterly uninitiated would maybe kinda grasp based on experience with lawn care. So anyway, tell us more about how folks in the country are living based on your obvious deep personal experience...