The tragic cult of fitness

Due to my rather efficacious dabbling in semaglutides last summer, I’m currently on the mailing list of several online pharmacies, and the other day I received an email making me aware of the existence of ‘fit notes’ – ‘formerly known as sick notes’ – following ‘an appropriate online consultation with one of our GPs’. The consultation alone would cost me £14.95 and should I receive validation as an invalid, a ‘fit note’ would then be offered to me for £19.95, so that’s the best part of £35 quid in order to pull a sickie.

I won’t be taking them up on it, as for me work is the antidote rather than the malady, but it did make me think of how the word ‘fit’ has gone from a pleasant and unpretentious word – meaning both apt and attractive – to a buzzword which can be used to sell the worried well (and the skiving well, as in the purchase of ‘fit notes’) things that aren’t necessarily going to make them any fitter.