By now you've heard the recommendation that we should all take at least 10,000 steps every day to maintain health, avoid an early death, stave off bubonic plague, clear up our skin, save the whales, and ensure world peace.
Or at least that's how it seems. According to many health bloggers – and trust me, I read a lot of them – 10,000 steps a day is the key to eternal life.
There are at least two things that should be noted about this 10,000 steps guideline:
(1) There's honestly nothing scientifically significant about 10,000 steps. The whole thing started in the 60s as part of a Japanese marketing campaign to sell pedometers. (A helpful rule of thumb in life is that if something seems crazy, the Japanese are probably involved.) 10,000 is a nice round number, but they could just as easily have said 9,000 steps or 11,000 steps. But 10,000 looks a lot better in an ad than those other numbers, so 10,000 it is.
(2) 10,000 steps is said to equate to about five miles of walking for the average person, though common sense tells you that some people's strides are longer than others and that therefore 10,000 steps will translate to different distances for different people. But what's certain is that 10,000 steps is a long way for most of us.
I'm a runner. Not a highly competitive one by any stretch, but I'm consistently out on the road running 4-5 days every week, virtually without exception. I like to think that fact makes me a healthy person, but at best I cover 15-20 miles a week. If 10,000 steps = 5 miles a day, it should be noted that 5 miles a day = 35 miles a week. And I haven't run that far in a long, long time.
Some will tell you that running is different and that you don't have to run as far to be credited with 10,000 steps than you do just walking. Whatever. The point is, I personally know maybe two people who regularly propel their bodies anywhere close to 35 miles a week, and both of them are certifiably insane endurance athletes.
Does that mean the rest of us are doomed?
Maybe. The 10,000-step advocates will point out that you don't have to get your steps in all at once, and that they can (and even should) be accumulated throughout the day by keeping busy via housework, yardwork, walking breaks at work, etc.
I don't know about you, but I sit at a desk all day. Sometimes for 9 or 10 hours at a stretch with only a few trips to the bathroom that maybe get me an additional 250 steps. And as we've found out recently, constant sitting is "the new smoking." It will kill you as easily as that cheeseburger will.
So what's a person to do? Personally, I'm opting for panic. There's no way my schedule will allow for a consistent 10,000 steps every day, so I've settled on constant worry as my coping mechanism while the specter of a sedentary death looms over me.
Which, ironically, will also kill you. Stress, I mean. Stress and sitting all day are bad for you. As is smoking. As are trans fats. As is everything else in the universe.
I'll think about that the next time I'm walking from the TV to the kitchen for a snack. By the time I get back to the couch, I'll only have 9,950 steps to go that day!
How depressing.
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