Turns out that this “YOU HAVE TO WALK 10,000 STEPS A DAY OR YOU’RE GONNA DIEEEEEE!!!” mantra is absolute bollocks. Actually, I always knew this instinctively, but here’s the !Science!:
By analyzing data on tens of thousands of people across four continents compiled between 15 existing studies, a team of researchers has landed on a more comfortable figure: the optimal number is probably closer to 6,000 steps per day, depending on your age.
Anything more is unlikely to further reduce your chances of stumbling into an early grave.
“So, what we saw was this incremental reduction in risk as steps increase, until it levels off,” said University of Massachusetts Amherst epidemiologist Amanda Paluch when the study was released in March 2022.
“And the leveling occurred at different step values for older versus younger adults.”
So… 10,000?
Half a century ago, the Yamasa Clock and Instrument Company in Japan sought to cash in on the buzz left by the 1964 Tokyo Olympics by producing a pedometer they called ‘Manpo-kei’ – a word that translates into 10,000 steps.
Why 10,000? Good old fashioned marketing. It’s a nice, round number that sounds taxing enough to be a goal, but achievable enough to be worth striving for. What it doesn’t have going for it is any scientific backing.
Yeah, but for the Health Nazis, that’s all they needed to boss us around. It’s like that “drink 100 gallons of water a day” (or whatever bullshit “round” number they came up with for that bit of nannying); everyone knows (or should know) that too much water is about as bad for you as too little.
Funny thing, that: humans actually have a trigger mechanism to tell you when to drink. It’s called “feeling thirsty”, and we’ve somehow managed to survive as a species for thousands of years by relying on it. Also, we know when to stop, because we start feeling “full”, but clearly we have to ignore our bodies and keep on chugging back the water… until our overworked kidneys say “Fuck this nonsense” and quit.
As will our hearts when, as senior citizens (or “useless mouth-breathers” as the yoof calls us), we end up dying because those useless and as it turns out, dangerous extra few thousand steps will tax that organ into failure.
Every doctor or “health professional” or “fitness expert” who has ever insisted on the “10,000 steps and/or x liters of water per day” regime needs to get strapped to a scaffold and flogged, say, 10,000 lashes with a bullwhip.
Is that too much? I dunno, but it’s a nice round number.
Hang out downstairs, but put the liquor cabinet upstairs. There you go, exercise.
Add in some nice snacks, and I call that my evening cool-down.
The Internet tells me that 6,000 steps is roughly 3 miles, or about the distance of a 5K run. So a good morning hike or jog would do the job just fine. With the added benefits of some fresh air, no annoying indoor Muzak, and no maskholes. Bonus points for early birds: wake up every barking dog in the neighborhood just by passing by, thereby sharing all the barky fun with their owners. The wife and I do this regularly; it’s a great time to plot micro-villainy, dubious schemes, and the day’s menu.
The whole idea is amazingly retarded on it’s face.
People are actually counting their steps?
Shallow pieces of shit.
Count money, not steps. Or maybe guns.
When I’m working, the days I hit 6,000 steps tend to turn into days where I hit 15,000++ steps.
The days I’m recovering from working tend to be <600 step days.
I work a factory warehouse job. Even if I’m working a forklift or two I still do 14-18,000 steps a night (3rd shift). On weekends I’m a bloody couch potato. It still works out to 10,000 or so steps a day/week. A pedometer app on my phone is pretty damn precise. Keeps my doc happy.
I find that the more people that have received advanced education in various ideas that the more dumb studies are produced. One study comes out making claims then it gets debunked a couple of months later. This is very prevalent in the healthcare industry. One month coffee is bad for you then the next month it is good for you. About the only food related study I believe is that eating highly processed food is probably bad for you. Eat from the farm not the factory.
Most of us could probably be better off with more exercise. Look what people did for recreation before the 1950s. People played golf, tennis, softball, swam, hunted, fished, hiked or played other sports for recreation. Today it’s sit in front of a computer screen at work, at home, or a television screen.
JQ
The only good thing that came out of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics was the movie “Walk, Don’t Run”.