Medical Matters:Doctors make resolutions too, so the New Year will find me working out in Nenagh's indoor athletic track, writes Pat Harrold.
It is a place where a hundred school children at a time can be seen strenuously letting off steam. Eamon Coughlan brings his son here to teach him the finer points of middle-distance running. The same Eamon Coughlan famously referred to the place as a "hay barn".
It is actually more like four hay barns cobbled together, a huge galvanised unheated structure. When it rains the sound is amplified so that you think there is a monsoon in full swing outside, except a monsoon would be warmer.
This athletic track was built by a team of enthusiasts 30 years ago, with minimal input from the Government. You would be hard put to find a more organic experience. The kids arrive, exercise and go home. There are no soft drink machines, in fact there is nothing for sale at all.
Hay barn or not, it is the best facility of its kind in Ireland. Why? Because it is the only one. There are no other indoor athletic tracks in the whole country.
In contrast, take a look at the greyhound racing programmes on television. Every county seems to have lavishly refurbished greyhound tracks, where no expense was spared.
After a look at the dogs there is always a shot of the bars and restaurants where families can be seen enjoying the night out. As I look at these children waving at the camera I wonder what they are learning.
They are learning how to gamble. They are learning how to drink. They are surely learning that there is at least a possibility that there is some doping going on. They are fed to the hilt in a room where there is about nine televisions. And they are supporting cruelty to animals.
Greyhound racing has its dark side. Dogs that don't make the grade are ruthlessly culled or sold to be raced to death abroad. Our kids are innocently exposed to all this.
Few of them bear any resemblance to greyhounds, as they gorge on cola and burgers. We are storing up huge health and social problems for ourselves as a society by encouraging this behaviour in our Celtic Tiger cubs.
Politicians seem happy to pose at the races and boast about their big winnings.
GPs, social workers and even bank managers see it differently. They see the neglected children, the broken homes, the huge social damage caused by gambling and drinking. This year a man with a good job told me that all the funds for the family Christmas had been placed on a horse. Is this the kind of future we wish for our children?
These greyhound stadiums are propped up by huge amounts of tax-payers' money. In fact, there seems to be no difficulty finding funds for anything that involves gambling, like horse racing, Croke Park, Lansdowne Road or anywhere you can fit a corporate tent and a bar.
If you could bet on skateboarding or attach a bar to a playground, would they then attract funding?
The majority of Irish children would be better off walking a greyhound than watching it run, but it is becoming difficult to find anywhere to walk a dog in Ireland, as the simple issue of allowing people to roam the countryside seems paralysed.
As rural farms and B&Bs go out of business, walkers have to holiday abroad in other European countries which value their health, their tourist industry and their environment.
One wonders what it takes for our politicians to realise that there is more to health than the absence of disease. Until then they cannot wonder why we are no longer a force at the Olympics but are world beaters in alcoholism, obesity and the ills of a sedentary lifestyle.
I wish the policymakers could take a spin up to the Lakeland forum in Enniskillen on a Saturday afternoon. There they could watch people of all ages, from little tots in the playground to old age pensioners in the pool, exercising safely and cheaply.
On the way home they could take in the huge housing estates in their own constituencies where there is absolutely no outlet for youthful energy.
Ireland is full of new leisure centres but these are invariably attached to hotels and exclude those who can't come up with a hefty annual membership. What we need are less grandiose schemes and more facilities at a local level, aimed to help those who need it most.
We are becoming a nation of bar-stool athletes. The country should take a New Year resolution to partake in life instead of observing it.
Pat Harrold is a GP practising in Co Tipperary.