“You’ve gained a kilo of muscle since we measured you a few months ago,” the Australian physiotherapist tells me as I stand self-consciously on the machine thing on a Monday morning.
It measures my hydration levels and my body fat composition and whether I’ve sinned in thought or deed recently. I’m not quite listening to her. I’m worrying about whether she somehow knows how large and salty my birthday dinner was last night.
Horrified curiosity led me to take a bite out of a spring roll full of cheeseburger. I considered that not all fusion cuisine is a desirable or necessary form of evolution while fighting off the urge to spit it out like a disgusted toddler.
Going into the physiotherapist’s office always prompts that deeply pathetic urge to pretend that I live a better, healthier life than I do. I want to tell her lies, as though she has skin in the game, and I’ll hurt her feelings by confessing that I made myself a Victoria sponge cake and ate two slices after the salty dinner.
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But it seems that I’m the deluded one this time. “You’re doing great,” the physio says, looking happily at the numbers on her chart. “You’ve clearly been working hard and eating well.” “Have I?” I think, feeling like a fraud before realising that I suppose she’s right. I’ve been living a much healthier and more active life since we moved to Australia, and it’s changed how my body functions and looks.
I’d noticed these changes, but don’t entirely take credit for them. It has felt so much easier to make these changes than it ever did at home that I’m not sure I did that much to bring them about. Really, Australia can’t help but change you. I want to protect my health into the future and lifting weights is hugely underrated for women, so it took work to learn newer, healthier habits. With perimenopause and menopause, we lose muscle mass. Lifting preserves muscle and bone density, supports your hormone and metabolic stability, and makes you feel healthier and more capable. If you’re able to do it, there’s really very little downside.
When I lived in London and in Dublin, it just wasn’t as easy as it has been here. Long, expensive commutes, multiple winter chest infections and dark mornings seemed to make it feel much more of a chore than it does in Canberra, where the gym is a 15-minute walk from my house and where it’s more unusual to live a sedentary life than it is to have an active hobby.
The Australians I know put me to shame. They run up mountains or surf. They play basketball. They stay active as they age. Generally, they have a more positive, less complex relationship with physical activity (and the body that allows them to engage in it) than we tend to. On multiple levels, being fit is just easier here.
The Australia Effect is a phenomenon all over TikTok and Instagram. Given that it captures that cultural sweet spot where our mass obsession with optimisation meets our yearning to look better, it’s hardly a surprise. Mostly young people from Europe or the US make short, striking videos comparing their pre-Australia appearance with the in-country version. There’s a lot of tanned skin, weight loss, newfound muscle tone, blonde highlights and (questionable) mullets. A lot of smiling and lounging on sand. The implication is that being in Australia makes people happier, healthier and more physically attractive. The tourism board must be losing its mind with the value of that kind of PR.
Let’s not lose our heads, though. Some of the Australia Effect proselytisers are young people here on temporary visas. These visas are not easy to obtain, and a lot of people agree to do physically demanding outdoor work – like stints on sun-scorched pineapple or banana farms – to have their working holiday in Australia. That will change how a person looks pretty quickly, but it won’t necessarily give them a sense of what it means to live here long term. Many go home without immersing in the culture and everyday reality of Australian life.
The idea that Australians work to live rather than the other way around is broadly true in my experience
While the wave-salted hair and golden skin of social media looks alluring and is indeed one side of life here, ordinary Australians sit in traffic, work in admin and have the same infuriating internal back-and-forth about what to cook for dinner day after day that the rest of us do.
Yet they do seem happier and more relaxed than us. They take their pleasures without guilt or judgment, and these pleasures are basic. The idea that Australians work to live rather than the other way around is broadly true in my experience. They don’t view leisure time as a distraction or indulgence or an opportunity to refuel for optimised work performance. They treat it like the best part of being alive. Time outdoors, time with family and friends. An embodied, active life. These are not something every Australian has easy access to, but they are valued and prioritised in the culture – understood to matter in practice as well as in theory.
A kilo of muscle is certainly more than I ever made at home. That’s my fault, sure, but the fact that Australia is a place where healthcare is more accessible, the climate pulls you out the door and gyms are cheaper also makes it objectively easier to take good care of yourself.
It’s easier to look better when the systems you live under function more efficiently, work stops at 6pm and regular exercise is supported by the rest of your lifestyle rather than conducted in friction with it.
There is an Australia Effect after all – absolutely none of us will be shocked to learn that wherever they live, when people generally work less, are less stressed and have more disposable income, they have the space to prioritise health and wellbeing.
