10,000 Steps

Not so long ago I read that taking three thousand steps a day would improve my health. I didn't take it very seriously and I didn't change my behavior because of the reports, but I did spend a little effort counting my steps, and I found that I took somewhat more than that number. Now, though, I find that my efforts, slight as they were, were wasted. I wasn't pacing enough. Today everyone knows that we should all walk at least ten thousand steps every day. And if we do we'll lose weight, improve our heart health, cut down on diabetes, decrease our potential for strokes, and a enjoy host of other health improvements.

I don't dispute these assertions. I can't. The references I've been able to find on search engines are primarily blogs stating what is considered to be common knowledge, but there's relatively little hard data supporting the various claims. As I suggested, however, that doesn't make them untrue, but they are poorly based or undocumented. There is an occasional study cited but, for the most part, the claims are made by believers. (I also don't dispute belief. I have high regard for it, as long as its scientific limitations are understood.) What this all means is another story.

A very unscientific study using only one subject – me – demonstrated a walking pace of about ninety-five steps per minute. That works out to fifty-seven hundred steps per hour, and I could do ten thousand steps in about an hour and three-quarters. (I'm assuming, of course, that I shouldn't need to rest along the way.) That would probably make me hungry, so I'm not sure that I'd get all the promised benefits for my actions.

And such a pedestrian action wouldn't come completely without cost. Fitness isn't free. For example, if I don't consider buying any books or other printed recommendations on the subject and if I choose not to put out money for a trainer, there would still be expenses. Moreover, even if I elected not to get a pedometer, shoes and outfits for my daily jaunts; even if I did not include the aspirin or other pain killers (and the subsequent need for joint replacements); and even if I didn't factor in the cost of additional food (health bars, of course), I'd still have to make a significant investment of time in the effort. As I calculated above, it would amount to about an hour and three-quarters daily. 

A number like that needs to be put in perspective if it's to make any sense. When I was younger, there was a popular song entitled “Lucky Me.” What made me lucky? “I work eight hours, I sleep eight hours, that leaves eight hours for fun.” Walking time will come, primarily, from the time assigned for fun. Knowing that I don't work on Saturday or Sunday (or any other time – I'm retired), and therefore adding in eight hours each weekend day, that comes to sixty-three hours a week for fun, so I'll use that for further calculations.

“Fun,” however, includes eating, dressing (and putting on makeup if you're so inclined), housecleaning, entertainment, interacting with friends and family, travel, and, to be indelicate, using the facilities. Twelve and a quarter hours (seven times one and three-quarter hours) is almost twenty percent of those sixty-three hours. It's likely to take a large bite of your “fun” time. You'd better cut out eating and going to the bathroom. Or (Heaven forbid) limit your time on Facebook.

Another way of looking at it is that it translates into over three point sixty-four years if practiced over a period of fifty years – an entire adult life – from about twenty to seventy. If you do it longer it will take more time. Perhaps the health benefits ascribed to this regimen will add more than that to your life, but the various blogs – and even the scientific studies – I've seen, make no specific claims about life extension. And even if some time is added, a valid question would be whether it is all worth it. When Sir John Mortimer, English barrister and author, was urged to eat a more nourishing, if less appetizing diet, he responded

“I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward.”

He lived over eighty-five years.

I suspect there are many who would respond similarly to the effort, and to the loss of time and the other activities that could be pursued, for a little more time in a geriatric ward of a nursing home.

This is a concept we need to walk back.