Rethinking Lifestyle

I stepped on the scale this morning and checked my weight. The scale says I am 180 lbs. Does that measurement alone say anything about my health? Indeed it says something, but by itself, very little. To know whether I am indeed healthy, we need additional information: my height, my body type, my ideal weight, whether I am gaining weight or losing weight, my blood pressure, etc. etc. Surely no one would say that because my weight had increased, this is a reliable indicator that I am healthy – especially nowadays when there is widespread acknowledgement that obesity is a problem. How seriously would anyone take a doctor who checks for weight gain, and, on the basis of that, assure us that we are in good health.

Why is it then, that similar logic is absent when we examine the health of our economy, whether that be the economy of the world, or country or our community?

In early March the CBC reported that “Canada’s economy [read GDP] grew at faster-than-expected 2.6% rate in the 4th quarter of 2016.” The article implies optimism, with one caution: President Trump’s unpredictability. The Globe and Mail’s headline: “Despite better GDP numbers, Canada’s economy still has one major weakness.” The major weakness is “moribund business investment”, and here too there is a caution about Trumps unpredictability. And I could go on quoting newspaper headlines.

But GDP is simply a measure of everything we produce and everything we consume. That’s all! Nothing more! Measuring and reporting GDP is similar to measuring and reporting body weight. Measuring and reporting GDP as an indicator of the health of our economy is woefully inadequate. It does not take into account whether what is being produced is useful or destructive. It makes no distinction between effort going into finding a cure for a debilitating disease and effort going into developing a tastier soft drink. It makes no distinction between a millionaire making an additional $10,000 so he/she can do what? and a person who has been on minimum wage now making an additional $10,00 so she/he can afford a decent apartment. It does not account for any impoverishment of the world we live in through resource depletion. It does not, for example, reflect the fact that with every day we are leaving less oil in the ground for our children and grandchildren.

Yet we applaud GST achievement. Many, many years ago, it was a CBC program that first drew my attention to the inadequacy of measuring GDP in isolation. Ever since then I have been looking to this same news outlet to present the GDP together with other measures of our communal welfare. It does, but not in the comprehensive, integrated way that would allow all of us to have a more balance view of our welfare.

Thankfully there are alternatives. Here are just a few alternatives The World Happiness Report; the OECD reports a Better Life Index, There is a Canadian Index of Wellbeing, and relatively new, from the International Institute of Sustainable Development The Comprehensive Wealth Report. In coming columns I will be commenting on some of these measurements.