Maintenance Phase - The 10,000 Steps Myth

00:00:00.000 i have one came to me this morning that's very fun uh welcome to maintenance phase the podcast

00:00:19.400 you can count on that's great isn't it actually legitimately good i think it's the first good one

00:00:25.940 that i've had since we started this show look it's no inconvenient tooth

00:00:30.880 once every 20 episodes one of us just has to nail it uh you're michael hobbs you're aubrey

00:00:39.520 gordon and everyone in the show wait i did it too fast i was like you want to just take it this

00:00:45.500 time that's fine wait let me do it i'll do it i'll do it great do it uh if you want to support

00:00:50.620 the show do you know that's kind of annoying i agree it actually makes it pretty hard for me to

00:00:58.180 do it has anyone ever told you it's very difficult now who's the tiny repeating machine someone else

00:01:03.000 is repeating uh you can support us on patreon and apple and buy t-shirts at t public and there's 0.80

00:01:12.380 links in the show notes look at that you did it i fucked it up uh and today we're talking about 0.71

00:01:19.780 fit bits and 10,000 steps. I'm calling this episode the myth of 10,000 steps. Oh, we're 0.54

00:01:27.460 going for it. You said myth was too strong for the sugar stuff. Yeah, because they weren't all

00:01:32.580 totally myths. It was a little more complicated. This one, full on a myth. I like it when they're

00:01:38.600 not complicated. I like it when they're simple. Michael, what is your understanding of this sort

00:01:43.540 of 10,000 steps mark? And what would you say is your relationship to it? Are you a person who

00:01:49.080 tries to get your steps in i'm okay i'm like half spoiled on this because every once in a while i

00:01:55.920 will kind of go around my like methodology twitter places and i will hear tale of the fact that this

00:02:03.660 10 000 steps thing is like totally fake but then i i i have known that you were doing this episode

00:02:08.620 for like six months so immediately upon seeing any reference to the 10 000 steps number i'm just

00:02:13.780 like nope nope nope no close window control w like i i don't want to get spoiled bless you so i know

00:02:18.700 that it's probably not true it's kind of like a suspiciously round number but the thing is i also

00:02:24.440 probably could have just expected that from like the premise of our podcast yeah totally totally

00:02:28.740 if we're covering it yeah if we're here yeah that's right that's right and no i'm not really

00:02:34.860 a 10 000 steps guy i'm not really someone who like tries to quantify my health stuff i am actually

00:02:42.520 like fairly health conscious but like in a qualitative way just like i haven't left the

00:02:48.000 house today i don't really use the apps that like track your jogs i don't know how fast i run a mile

00:02:53.300 i've done a couple half marathons i couldn't even tell you what my times were

00:02:57.300 how about you do you count anything i was absolutely a hardcore 10 000 steps lady for

00:03:04.480 like a couple of years yeah absolutely this was when i was not um seeing a doctor and i was like

00:03:11.320 i better be at the top of my game everywhere else if i'm not seeing a doctor right that's bleak and

00:03:17.800 i would go walk in peninsula park this rose garden in portland and just walk around the big loop

00:03:23.440 until i got my 10 000 steps and then i'd walk back home and then did you find it useful doing it or

00:03:28.760 like how do you think about it now looking back i enjoyed it it definitely like got me out of the

00:03:34.660 house i found this park that i really liked and like to spend time in and i would like meet people

00:03:39.840 and meet their dogs and I get to pick out my cute workout leggings and all that kind of stuff.

00:03:44.560 Right. Yeah. But it was also coming from a place of like deep anxiety and almost sort of this like

00:03:50.760 superstitious desire to believe that I just if I just did that, I'd be fine. Right. Even though I

00:03:56.420 didn't have a doctor. Right. Right. It was a coping mechanism. It wasn't actually like for love of the

00:04:01.540 game. You know what I mean? Most of adult life is like setting arbitrary goals and then reaching

00:04:07.300 them. And so I've always been fairly magnanimous about people who find this framework useful.

00:04:12.300 Cause it's like, for you, it's like 10,000 steps a day for other people. It's going to be like 45

00:04:16.700 minutes of walking a day for other people. It's like, I need to walk my dog or I just want to

00:04:21.580 leave the house once a day. I mean, people kind of come up with these rubrics and like it, it's

00:04:25.580 not really clear to me that like one is all that much better than the other, like whatever works

00:04:29.300 for the person. And so it always seemed kind of harmless to me, honestly. It's like, yeah,

00:04:33.380 10,000 steps, whatever, 5,000, 15,000, uh, whatever works for you. Yeah. I think this is

00:04:38.160 one I would, I would put it in a similar category, which is like, it's definitely not like the worst

00:04:43.740 or wildest thing that we're doing as a culture around sort of health and fitness stuff. Right.

00:04:50.080 But it is one that is considerably out of step with the actual science in a way that I think

00:04:56.560 is really interesting. And I think part of what interested me about looking into this

00:05:00.200 was that it really feels like this 10,000 steps number has on a cultural level taken on that kind

00:05:07.360 of superstitious overtone of like, if you don't hit 10,000 steps, like something bad is going to

00:05:14.000 happen to your health. Right. And as ever, all of the science that we talk about on this show

00:05:19.520 is a scatterplot, right? And there's a pretty wide range of acceptable numbers of steps to get.

00:05:25.420 I like it when you transition us from personal preamble to the content of the show. Oh,

00:05:29.060 Well, look at that. It's as if this is the format I've been writing in for years.

00:05:35.800 The anecdotally, it gives way to the net graph. That's where we are.

00:05:39.340 Yeah, that's right. That's right. So 10,000 Steps is sort of all around us. It's the default goal

00:05:45.660 on a Fitbit, on an Apple Watch, on an iPhone. It's recommended actually by a number of health

00:05:51.540 authorities around the world, authorities in Japan and Australia. The World Health Organization

00:05:57.240 talks about 10,000 steps. Okay. This is a moment in the story where I imagine like a record scratch

00:06:04.840 and a voiceover of 10,000 steps going, yeah, that's me. You're probably wondering how I got

00:06:10.340 here. Yeah. If we're going to talk about 10,000 steps, we kind of can't do that without talking

00:06:15.720 about the device that gets us to step counting. Fiat, be it. Well, pre-fiat, be it. Just straight

00:06:24.300 up mechanical pedometers right oh wait what before there were fitbits there were like actual like

00:06:29.980 analog step counters are you kidding me i didn't know this existed why i thought i thought this

00:06:35.380 was like an invention of like the internet era michael tell me you weren't in weight watchers

00:06:41.060 without telling me you weren't in weight watchers mechanical pedometers have been a thing how do

00:06:47.740 they work they like attach to your hip or something yeah absolutely there's like uh it's uh historically

00:06:52.720 most of them were built by watchmakers because it's just a totally mechanical, like weighted

00:06:58.580 system. You sort of clip it to your waistband, right? All it does is count your steps and it

00:07:04.220 clicks when it counts your steps. Oh my God. So you're walking in the park and it's like,

00:07:08.100 click, click, click, click, click the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. But like it's not super duper loud,

00:07:12.320 but it does click. Right. So steps or historically paces have long been used to measure distance

00:07:21.480 In the research for this episode, I learned that the word mile comes from the Latin for

00:07:28.420 1,000 paces.

00:07:30.620 Also, we call a foot a foot.

00:07:32.580 We do.

00:07:33.180 Like a foot that you walk with.

00:07:34.700 We do.

00:07:35.340 Yes.

00:07:35.880 Pedometers themselves were conceptualized centuries ago.

00:07:41.700 Actually, there are some sketches from da Vinci.

00:07:45.760 What?

00:07:46.000 But the first one was actually created in the late 1700s by a Swiss watchmaker using the same mechanism he'd developed for a self-winding watch.

00:07:58.960 A number of pedometers were invented around the same time in different countries.

00:08:05.960 One of those people tinkering around with this thing was Thomas Jefferson.

00:08:11.340 Okay.

00:08:11.720 So Jefferson reportedly designed the pedometer and then commissioned it to be made by a watchmaker

00:08:16.920 in Paris. And the mechanism for his pedometer is very funny. You would put it in your like pocket

00:08:25.560 and there would be a hole in your pocket. The pedometer was tied to a piece of string

00:08:31.320 and the string was tied to your leg. Oh, so when your leg moved, it like yanked on the string

00:08:39.260 and registered another step that just seems really wouldn't it create friction in one leg

00:08:46.200 and then you just end up walking in a circle i know i like the idea that it's like a boat with

00:08:52.100 one oar is this where we get the phrase pulling my leg i don't think so because pedometers were

00:08:58.400 such a joke so pedometers were and are famously inaccurate they're much better than they used to

00:09:06.800 be, but they're still not great. The iPhone pedometer, which is one of the most widely used

00:09:13.060 currently is estimated to undercount your steps by about 21%. So if I get 10,000 steps on my phone,

00:09:20.480 I've actually gotten 12,000 steps roughly. Potentially. Okay. The other ones that you

00:09:24.520 wear at your waistband or your wrist, the sort of more mechanical pedometers have been reported to

00:09:30.060 capture things like typing as taking steps, right? If you have it on your wrist, there is one review

00:09:35.660 that I read where the guy was like, oh, I've written one paragraph of this story. And in that

00:09:39.700 time, my pedometer has logged 54 steps. And I was like, okay, I'm like a championship fidgeter.

00:09:45.860 So like, I bounce my leg up and down. So I don't know if that means I'd have like 80,000 steps at

00:09:50.760 the end of every day. So pedometers have been around for quite some time, but they don't really

00:09:55.260 catch on, right? They're sort of around Jefferson's tinkering around with them, they sort of get a

00:10:00.780 little bit more of a start in the 20th century. But for the most part, they are known to sort of

00:10:06.700 like nerdy quantifier types, right? Part of the reason the pedometers don't catch on is that for

00:10:12.320 decades, selling a pedometer meant explaining what a pedometer does, and why you would want one and

00:10:19.760 what you would use it for. It would be like selling something today that was like, we'll count how

00:10:24.440 many breaths you take. Yeah, this number would not be meaningful to me whatsoever. At this point,

00:10:29.500 i am transporting you michael to tokyo in 1963

00:10:35.140 good job garth oh wait am i i think i'm garth yeah i think you're the garth it was my halloween

00:10:43.940 costume fat garth i really love that we have us saying that in stereo fat garth so we're in 1963

00:10:54.300 Tokyo is getting ready to host the 1964 Olympics.

00:10:58.900 So there are a lot of conversations about health and fitness and sports sort of in the air, right?

00:11:05.500 There is a professor and researcher in Tokyo who is worried about the rising numbers of fat people in Japan.

00:11:15.920 This doctor, Dr. Hatano, leads a research team that determines that Japanese people at the time walked an average of three to five thousand steps per day.

00:11:28.360 His research team figured out that if they went up to 10,000 steps per day, all of those average Japanese citizens could burn a few hundred calories each day.

00:11:41.960 And they added that up to a projected weight loss of 20 kilograms or 44 pounds in one year.

00:11:49.360 Oh, this is the thing we've come across so many times.

00:11:51.820 Calories in, calories out, baby.

00:11:53.620 You take very small adjustments to food intake or exercise, and then you extrapolate those out over the year.

00:12:02.700 And then you're like, oh, switching from 12-ounce coffee to 8-ounce coffee will make you lose 7 pounds over the course of a year, whatever.

00:12:09.600 Totally.

00:12:09.980 This doesn't take into account that people compensate in other ways.

00:12:12.800 Yeah. This is based on a fundamental calculation that a calorie deficit of 3,500 calories

00:12:20.580 leads to a loss of one pound of fat. That has been fully debunked.

00:12:27.860 Right. Because your body adjusts its temperature, hunger and fullness cues, all kinds of other

00:12:33.380 systems kick in basically to get you to eat and expend the same number of calories every day.

00:12:38.620 So this research starts sort of making the rounds in the medical community in Japan,

00:12:43.860 and the head of one of Tokyo's biggest clinics is talking to an engineer about this idea that he has

00:12:52.360 that people need to increase the number of steps that they're taking each day.

00:12:57.280 That engineer works for a clockmaker called Yamasa Tokekeiki. Two years later,

00:13:04.820 that company in 1965 introduces something called the Manpo K, which literally translates to

00:13:13.420 the 10,000 step meter. Okay. That's a number that they are lifting directly from this sort of

00:13:20.180 calories in calories out research. So basically it's a number pulled out of thin air. People are

00:13:25.760 getting two to 3000 steps and they're like, if you were getting 10,000, this is how much weight

00:13:29.780 you would lose. And there's some speculation and debate about why they chose that 10,000 steps

00:13:36.000 number in particular. Some folks say it's from the research. Some folks say that it's sort of

00:13:41.780 a number of significance in Japanese language and culture. It's a number that pops up quite a bit.

00:13:47.380 Other folks say that the character for 10,000 in Japanese kind of looks like a person walking.

00:13:53.920 And the product catches on in a big way. They start releasing different models of the 10,000

00:14:01.680 steps meter. In 1991, they release a sort of, they call it their discrete pedometer.

00:14:09.060 It's a tie tack pedometer. What's that mean? Like it's a pedometer in a tie tack.

00:14:14.860 What's a tie tack? Oh, a tie tack is like the little pin that people wear on their tie

00:14:18.840 to fasten the skinny part to the fatter part. There's a name for that?

00:14:23.920 i just called it the little tie clip thing i've never owned one i was not anticipating teaching

00:14:29.820 you a thing about menswear yeah i i just called it like the poindexter clip because that's always

00:14:36.080 like in revenge of the nerds they always have those on their ties oh that's a tie bar wait

00:14:40.300 there's two different things now there's the tie clip and the tie okay spin-off podcast spin-off

00:14:46.160 podcast we'll take this up later uh later it's stay tuned for later in the episode when mike

00:14:50.060 learns what a double Windsor is. I also do not you're joking, but I do not know what the fuck 0.88

00:14:54.280 that is. I think I might have tied more neckties on myself than you have tied on yourself. You 0.97

00:15:00.440 have seen the way that I dress and my physical and personal appearance. So this is not a surprise

00:15:05.460 to you. So they described this tie tack pedometer as being quote, for the salary man who does not

00:15:13.900 want the world to see his pedometer. So it's a pedometer on your tie. And they think that's

00:15:19.720 gonna work yeah totally so just like how much it bounces up and down i guess basically i mean all

00:15:24.140 of these are just measuring either movement or acceleration those are sort of the two models

00:15:29.060 yeah this does seem like it wouldn't be very accurate so this 10 000 steps meter gets introduced

00:15:34.460 in 1965 fitbits aren't introduced until 2009 so what i wanted to figure out is like what's

00:15:44.020 happening with pedometers in the intervening years. So I started looking around. And first,

00:15:51.320 I found an article from The Guardian. It's an odd one. And the tone of the article is basically like,

00:16:00.960 what's this pedometer everybody keeps talking about? I keep hearing about pedometers. What are

00:16:05.980 I am going to send you a quote from this piece in The Guardian, just because it's like a fun little ephemera.

00:16:15.640 It says, foot power is enjoying a renaissance thanks to an addictive gadget called a pedometer.

00:16:22.300 Worn on the hip and looking like a digital stopwatch, pedometers are rapidly making the transition from an underground craze sported solely by fitness geeks to the must-have gizmo for those in the know.

00:16:33.560 robbie williams caprice and cameron diaz are a few of the celebrities who are fans of the pedometer

00:16:41.140 yeah robbie williams it's like a celebrity item the the name of this piece is stars join the

00:16:51.220 fitness craze that makes every step count what and it appears in the society section i'm loving

00:16:58.060 pedometers instead okay good yes too many syllables more karaoke who is caprice i don't

00:17:07.140 know if they're famous in britain they're in a boy band that's the only option so then i started

00:17:12.420 looking at pedometer media from 2004 because i'm like everyone's talking about a pedometer what's 0.71

00:17:16.420 going on and michael i find a bunch of articles about mcdonald's oh this is where shit gets weird

00:17:26.600 It already got weird when you told me that the Thai thing has a name.

00:17:29.600 So in 2004, McDonald's launches something called their Go Active Happy Meal for adults.

00:17:37.460 Oh, what? Okay.

00:17:38.840 The meal consists of a bottle of water, an entree salad, which McDonald's had just introduced the year before.

00:17:45.960 Uh-huh.

00:17:46.900 And what they're calling a step-o-meter.

00:17:50.000 Oh.

00:17:50.480 It's a clip-on pedometer.

00:17:52.180 during this promotion they distribute 15 million stepometers right how much was the happy meal 0.85

00:18:01.940 4.99 how the fuck is this fitbit so cheap it must have cost nothing to produce it's not a fitbit 0.95

00:18:08.420 buddy this is the mechanical cheapity cheap is it just like a little digital readout on your hip 0.96

00:18:13.520 that just like says a number basically it's like a little calculator screen they market the adult

00:18:19.720 Happy Meal, the Go Active Meal, in an endorsement deal with Oprah's personal trainer, Bob Green. 1.00

00:18:27.680 Fuck off. You knew Oprah had to be involved somehow. 1.00

00:18:30.720 Baby, this is not the last we're going to hear of Oprah.

00:18:34.760 Incredible.

00:18:35.820 Basically, McDonald's sales had been flagging for a while. And much of that was attributed to

00:18:43.300 consumers starting to associate McDonald's with ill health and particularly with being fat.

00:18:48.940 and it's the height of like obesity epidemic quote-unquote media right this is like right

00:18:54.400 when all of that is really kicking off yeah when does super size me come out this is like in that 0.94

00:18:59.340 era right why would you spoil it this way michael okay it's a direct fucking response no way super

00:19:07.700 size me coming out yeah this was peak like blame fast food for everything yeah so 2004 is the year 0.83

00:19:13.560 that super size me comes out okay and it is also the year that mcdonald's introduces these pedometers

00:19:18.080 right at this time their ceo has some very public health issues they had just brought their old ceo

00:19:29.180 out of retirement to bring back their sort of flagging sales they brought him back from

00:19:35.480 retirement and he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 60 oh wow okay yeah and then it's like a

00:19:42.140 perfect little juxtaposition of like fast food is unhealthy ceo of fast food company dies of a heart

00:19:46.860 attack basically well then they name a new ceo who's 43 and two weeks later that ceo was diagnosed 0.87

00:19:56.520 with colon cancer holy shit okay then the president of mcdonald's u.s division does a little proactive

00:20:04.680 press and like starts just telling reporters like fyi my health is great i live a very active life 0.97

00:20:12.740 with my kids i work out four times a week i've been doing it for 20 years don't worry about me

00:20:17.380 getting my steps that's not gonna happen to me right like what a gross response it's also very

00:20:23.540 funny because it assumes that the ceo of mcdonald's eats mcdonald's with any regularity

00:20:29.240 yes correct absolutely do not correct i would say that those are much more referenda on the health

00:20:35.200 of the lives of ceos yeah like mcdonald's eaters yeah this is the health effect of golf and like

00:20:41.160 leather back seats. So the reviews of the step-o-meter from this era are brutal and they are

00:20:51.700 hilarious. I can't believe something that was $4.99 for a pedometer and a salad and a water

00:20:57.660 did not work great. So I found two reviews. I'm going to send you quotes from each of them.

00:21:04.780 This is from Unique Reviews. Unique Reviews. As anyone who's ever finished middle school

00:21:11.020 knows. Good intentions do not always result in good outcomes. The Hindenburg, the Salem Witch

00:21:16.980 Trials, and the Titanic are just examples of this maxim. Unfortunately, McDonald's Go Active

00:21:23.180 Stepometer is another item to add to the list. While we appreciate that they have good reason

00:21:28.480 to want to change public opinion about McDonald's, we're not sure that this is the best way to go

00:21:33.200 about doing it. The Hindenburg! I questioned whether the Salem Witch Trials had good intentions

00:21:39.120 behind them but that's uh maybe not here nor there 1.00

00:21:42.960 famously just looking out for everybody cotton mather who can fault the people drowning women

00:21:51.400 you know they were trying here is a quote from outside magazine it says these things are cheapo 0.98

00:22:00.760 the insides rattled about and we could tell when it counted steps by listening to it

00:22:08.320 brush against it and as far as it knew you'd walked five steps nevertheless never having

00:22:13.880 worn a pedometer for any length of time it was rather addictive to see the number going up

00:22:18.120 we can see how this would be a carrot to beginners and inactive people that's a good example of like

00:22:24.440 the more forgiving press around this is like there's a set of baked in assumptions which is

00:22:30.180 like anybody who eats at mcdonald's must need a pedometer must not be walking around therefore

00:22:36.960 or maybe this is a net gain. But, you know, the press and sort of media coverage at the time is

00:22:43.920 incredibly clear eyed about what's going on here. The New York Times calls it, quote,

00:22:50.080 McDonald's latest attempt to recast itself as a purveyor of healthy food in the face of

00:22:56.300 criticism that fast food companies have contributed to the increasing number of obese people.

00:23:02.040 Around this time, McDonald's also changes their chicken nuggets to be all white meat.

00:23:06.960 this is also around the time that they phase out supersizing right and even though kind of all of

00:23:14.400 the media at the time is like this is pretty craven right it works yeah mcdonald's sales

00:23:20.660 increase even with these like very sort of cosmetic changes to its menu right this is all

00:23:27.280 completely an effort at marketing it's it's like the oil companies rebranding is like beyond

00:23:31.940 petroleum yeah i mean we've talked about this before but like it also is weird that the fast

00:23:36.020 food companies got like all of the blame for like American eating habits when like Applebee's is

00:23:41.200 like just as bad as McDonald's, but like the fast casual sector doesn't have the same kind of

00:23:44.860 stigma. No, this is the famous thing about like the highest calorie dish you can get in the US

00:23:51.060 at a chain restaurant is the pasta primavera at Cheesecake Factory. Right, right. Like the

00:23:56.580 veggie pasta is the most caloric thing you can find. Right. Once this sort of McDonald's quote

00:24:04.080 unquote, step-o-meter is introduced, it really does boost the profile of pedometers. And there

00:24:10.100 starts to be more media coverage about the utility of pedometers and all of that kind of stuff.

00:24:15.100 That leads to the 2009 introduction of the Fitbit. 2009 is also when we got the Wii Fit.

00:24:23.140 Oh, yeah. Remember that fucking thing? 0.99

00:24:25.380 Where you could do little exercise moves with your grandma with like the little controller. 0.99

00:24:28.500 Totally. It would make a little avatar of you based on your height and weight.

00:24:32.480 And I just get a round little avatar, just a little, just a little butterball, just a bunch

00:24:39.040 of circles, just a little snowman. Totally. Absolutely. A snowman. Yeah. In 2015, the Apple

00:24:45.660 watch is introduced and that's really when the 10,000 steps thing takes off, right? You've got

00:24:52.100 this sort of prestige luxury kind of item that is an Apple watch, right? And one of their big

00:24:59.420 marketing tools is fill in your circles on your apple watch right and this was a way in to get

00:25:05.540 people to think about this thing that they had never really considered as being any kind of

00:25:09.920 necessity now becomes like a daily essential thing during this period of like the 2010s and

00:25:16.900 also i guess it's it's linked to the rise of smartphones too that you didn't have this like

00:25:21.260 internet enabled device with you at all times then all of a sudden you did and it's like well

00:25:25.320 it has the capacity to do this totally kind of like you might as well like turn it on do you

00:25:29.680 even need to turn it on anymore i think it might just come pre-activated wait really i think so

00:25:34.720 wait let me i'm checking my my phone app fit i have the fitness app the health one with a little

00:25:40.200 heart in it that's where mine lives oh i can set my daily move goal lightly moderately highly okay

00:25:46.620 stay motivated with fitness notifications absolutely not don't allow 1.00

00:25:50.320 fuck that never oh yeah god jesus christ it's been tracking your steps no yeah fuck it says 1.00

00:25:56.060 8,037 steps yeah there you go because i went jogging this morning yeah what the fuck i feel 1.00

00:26:01.360 violated and surveilled but also i have to do 2,000 more steps to get it over 10 0.81

00:26:05.080 well that puts you back in league with our old pal oprah winfrey in 2016 the year after the

00:26:15.080 apple watch is introduced oprah writes in o magazine that she is pledging to get 10 000

00:26:20.900 steps a day because she wants to feel strong and fit okay which again sure fine but also when oprah

00:26:27.720 writes about a thing that she's doing it's never just like hey this one lady told us about this

00:26:32.120 one thing she does yeah oprah says literally anything just like a billion dollars goes to

00:26:37.100 whatever whatever if she's like i bought a rhododendron then like the rhododendron industry

00:26:41.740 like quintuples in size immediately that same year 2016 we get another wave of pedometer news

00:26:50.340 and this time it's about kids pedometers oh okay to explain i have just sent you

00:26:59.740 a youtube link this is footage of a child counting to 10 000 just one two three let me know when

00:27:06.560 you're ready at mcdonald's you can have fun with your food and have fun with steps with the step

00:27:20.200 it activity band in your mcdonald's happy meal so this is like an animated it starts out as like

00:27:27.660 an animated ad of a pirate ship and a bunch of slices of apple pushing a chicken nugget off the

00:27:35.440 plank yeah like they're murdering the chicken nugget and then a shark jumps up and then a shark

00:27:40.640 jumps up and then as the nugget falls into the shark's mouth the shark turns into a real a real

00:27:45.820 non-animated child and the child eats the chicken nugget and then it's like you can you can have

00:27:51.100 step it's you can step step your steps step your steps i've forgotten how it ends already

00:27:55.500 so it's 2016 we're seeing these ads for mcdonald's penometers for kids and that is because surprise

00:28:06.400 surprise mcdonald's has gotten a lot more bad press in the intervening years right particularly

00:28:13.480 post like 2010 they get a big wave of stuff there's an artist that does something called

00:28:20.900 the happy meal project in which that artist left a mcdonald's burger and fries out like on a

00:28:28.360 counter to see how long it would take to decay and reported that it didn't grow mold after like

00:28:34.880 a full six months it just looked the same i remember that in 2010 san francisco actually

00:28:41.320 bans any meal with a toy being sold in the city unless it's served with fruits and vegetables

00:28:48.200 and the entire meal is less than 600 calories this is widely understood to be a direct hit

00:28:54.320 at mcdonald's right right in 2010 also the center for science and the public interest

00:28:59.180 sues mcdonald's to stop using toys to market happy meals saying the practice is sort of

00:29:06.380 manipulative in their filings they call it quote a highly sophisticated scheme to use the bait of

00:29:14.600 toys to exploit children's developmental immaturity and subvert parental authority.

00:29:21.600 I mean, I don't think that literally anything should be marketed to kids. So I'm fine with any

00:29:24.920 restriction that stops a company from speaking to children. So I'm cool with this shit. 1.00

00:29:29.640 One year later in 2011, full page ads appear across the country in major U.S. newspapers 0.99

00:29:37.580 saying that Happy Meals should be banned altogether because they, quote, contribute to childhood

00:29:43.920 obesity so again all of this anti-mcdonald's sentiment is bolstered by mcdonald's sort of

00:29:54.160 believed role in the creation of fat kids right it's like we've got all these fat kids who do we

00:29:59.920 blame let's blame mcdonald's right this is the problem with the putting obesity at the center 0.99

00:30:05.240 of like all of our fucking health stuff it's like we just talk about food and how the food is bad 0.94

00:30:10.560 and like kids should get more exercise. 0.98

00:30:12.520 Around this same time,

00:30:14.420 McDonald's has been the target of a few different campaigns

00:30:17.960 to get them to do things differently.

00:30:20.080 One of them is a long-term campaign by evangelicals

00:30:24.540 to get them to block porn on their public Wi-Fi networks.

00:30:28.820 Wait, really?

00:30:29.880 Absolutely.

00:30:30.660 And McDonald's does it.

00:30:31.880 Well.

00:30:32.600 They've also been targets of a campaign

00:30:34.980 to end the McDonald's school nutrition program.

00:30:40.000 Oh, God. That's a bleak oxymoron.

00:30:44.040 Is it not, Michael?

00:30:45.740 What is this?

00:30:46.980 McDonald's was sending speakers and materials to schools to talk about nutrition.

00:30:52.380 Like McDonald's branded materials.

00:30:55.020 Guys, no, no, no.

00:30:58.120 Their main speaker is John Cisna, who was the Iowa teacher who said that he lost weight eating McDonald's.

00:31:06.440 Oh, he was the Jared from Subway of McDonald's?

00:31:08.840 uh-huh he was the guy who uh was sort of like the counterpoint in a bunch of the media around

00:31:14.220 supersize me oh chances of libertarianism moderate to high john cisna is on mcdonald's payroll as a

00:31:22.380 brand ambassador okay there's some media of mcdonald's being like look john books his own

00:31:29.280 events and we support him in that if there's stuff we can send him we do that and then the

00:31:34.700 reporters goes to john and he's like oh i just mcdonald's emails me and tells me what events

00:31:39.800 to be at when where and they make the arrangements and then i just show i don't like this

00:31:45.160 i don't like corporations being given access to our kids i think it's really bad yeah so

00:31:53.240 this is around the time that they uh phase out that program but just like there's enough

00:31:58.780 ambient pressure around this same time unsurprisingly once again mcdonald's profits

00:32:07.700 are down and they've been down since 2013 so they're in year three of a decline in their

00:32:15.340 profits right in the uk they're at their lowest point in the chain's uk history that's because

00:32:21.780 they didn't get the caprice endorsement okay okay from three directions the other thing that

00:32:28.560 is happening at this time michael michael is this is the height of the fight for 15 campaign in the

00:32:36.140 u.s this is a campaign to increase the minimum wage to 15 an hour that campaign specifically

00:32:44.920 focused on fast food workers and mcdonald's employees were consistently front and center

00:32:51.700 right that's where we start getting all those statistics about like the average age of a fast

00:32:56.320 food worker is like 36 yeah dispelling these myths about like these are just jobs for teenagers or

00:33:02.380 whatever no one's really living on it mcdonald's is getting bad press all over the place and their

00:33:08.120 sales are down it's not great they were only paying that brand ambassador nine dollars an

00:33:13.640 hour i'm sure that's what it was really about their next choice uh was to introduce these

00:33:19.580 step it pedometers for kids and very quickly the whole thing goes south a facebook post

00:33:30.420 pops up and gets shared like a hundred thousand times very quickly okay of a mom showing pictures

00:33:39.500 of her toddler wearing the pedometer and then taking it off and showing this kind of gnarly

00:33:45.700 like burn welt thing oh right because the in the ad the the little pedometer was like a watch

00:33:53.820 it's like a little mini apple watch thing but it's in like pastel like kid colors totally and

00:33:57.940 it's not it is made to have the appearance of sort of like an apple watch or a samsung watch

00:34:04.900 or something it's just a digital pedometer with the little calculator screen but they have a

00:34:09.900 sticker around the rest of it to make it look like it's apps or whatever right right right this

00:34:14.500 facebook post makes the rounds it starts to garner media mcdonald's says publicly that they

00:34:20.780 have gotten 70 reports of skin irritation okay or burns to children okay so they voluntarily recall 0.67

00:34:31.940 all 32 million oh wow holy shit it's a huge weird story yeah as with the 2004 pedometer 0.99

00:34:43.460 the 2016 kids pedometer it is an absolute piece of shit product yeah it must be yeah this is the 0.99

00:34:50.340 one where the cnet reviewer does a review and says that they got 54 steps from typing 0.99

00:34:57.180 oh yeah but then they took a 500 step walk and only 40 of those steps registered on the

00:35:04.480 mcdonald's kids pedometer so they should have said that it was a keystroke monitor

00:35:08.620 and not a walking monitor and get the kids typing more the ringer published a review

00:35:13.580 of the step at pedometer titled a very serious review of mcdonald's flesh-burning fitness tracker

00:35:20.540 nice that was the head the deck was just i'm loving it nice did anyone adjust the number

00:35:29.140 for kids were kids also supposed to get 10 000 steps a day because like their little steps are

00:35:32.860 shorter or something they're actually supposed to get more than adults there's some specific

00:35:37.520 research on this on sort of like how much how many steps should adults get how many steps should

00:35:43.220 seniors get that's a different number right so let's dig in on the data right let's do it the

00:35:49.440 research is really clear on this subject there's not a single number that folks have arrived at

00:35:56.640 but what we know for sure is 10 000 steps is a fine number it's not a bad number

00:36:02.240 but it isn't specifically tied to a decreased risk of mortality or specific health conditions.

00:36:11.540 Basically, in a bunch of the research and literature, they say, look, 10,000 steps is

00:36:17.300 a pretty good shorthand for something that we know for sure, which is that people should be

00:36:22.260 getting a certain number of minutes, about 150 minutes of what's called MVPA, moderate to vigorous

00:36:30.440 physical activity each week, right? So 10,000 steps a day gets you there with a little space

00:36:37.220 to spare, right? And all of the research is basically just like, look, this only matters

00:36:41.980 insofar as it gets you to that goal, right? Right. For adults under 60, most of the research shows

00:36:50.160 that 6,000 to 8,000 steps per day is the sweet spot. Okay. Anything over 7,500 steps a day,

00:36:59.880 your benefits sort of plateau. And are these based on anything? Are these are these based

00:37:03.820 on the RCTs? Or are they just these big cohort studies? These are big cohort studies. And they

00:37:08.560 are looking much more at like, what's the scatterplot of people's actual existing activity

00:37:14.420 patterns. So these are just associations, basically. Totally. It's not if you get more

00:37:18.280 steps, you're healthier. It could be if you're healthier, you get more steps. Absolutely. So

00:37:22.080 we can't say as a result of getting 6000 to 8000 steps a day alone, you will therefore

00:37:29.860 have all of these other health outcomes we can say there's a correlation between people who get

00:37:34.220 six to eight thousand steps a day and people who have fewer sort of uh risk factors for stroke and

00:37:40.820 heart disease right number of things right so it's kind of meaningless ultimately a little bit

00:37:44.700 right i just tend to think all this stuff is bullshit it's all still a shorthand to get at

00:37:49.860 just like physical activity yeah right it seems like it's like fairly uncontroversial to say that

00:37:54.860 like some level of physical activity regularly is like very good for you yeah but then there's just

00:37:59.080 this weird fucking project to try to define specifics and like i yeah i just don't i just 0.59

00:38:05.060 don't understand why i mean i guess like on an individual psychological level i get why people 0.98

00:38:11.500 would want to like aim for a number yeah but i don't understand why like the sort of the public

00:38:15.300 health apparatus is like aiding in that effort i suspect that this comes from the like pretty

00:38:21.580 deep running understanding of like something's better than nothing yeah and if people are

00:38:26.300 grabbing onto this thing we might as well say yeah that's a good thing to do i've gotten so

00:38:30.720 radicalized you really have researching the show you really have these like correlations and like

00:38:35.540 you can try to control for stuff fine but like we just don't really know and i don't understand

00:38:41.760 this project of trying to define like the correct number of steps for the population as a whole when

00:38:47.640 the population is 330 million fucking people in it people have totally different needs and

00:38:51.640 abilities and stuff it's like what what is the point of this and it is a deep tail wagging the 0.96

00:38:56.960 dog moment right where it's like marketing came up with 10 000 steps and now there are all these

00:39:02.940 researchers being like why is 10 000 steps the number why is 10 000 steps not the number where

00:39:08.260 i'm just like this is the wrong order for things to go in right and even if we were able to define

00:39:15.040 that like okay you should get exactly 6 100 steps per day then we're just back to like an arbitrary

00:39:20.740 number that isn't going to apply to very many individuals because different individuals have

00:39:24.340 different needs. Right. And already, it's already pretty banal to say that like, yeah, try to get

00:39:28.780 activity regularly. I will say even within the like steps literature, there is a significant

00:39:35.180 debate about the number of steps versus the pace of those steps. Oh, yeah, of course. Right. So

00:39:41.380 people are like, well, if you take them really slow, do they really count? How much does it

00:39:45.760 better and there's like some indication that like there's some researchers who argue that you need

00:39:51.320 to get a pace of 100 steps per minute minimum and that's how you get the benefits all of this like

00:39:57.360 driving further and further into granularity right with this kind of stuff i am a brisk walker so

00:40:04.360 maybe my maybe my 8 000 steps counts as more okay i have like nervous little legs just like

00:40:09.860 a little chihuahua i really love that your response to finding out your own step count

00:40:16.800 is like a case study in how weird this can make people i don't like it you're just like i don't 0.94

00:40:22.280 like knowing it i should have had more than that but also i don't care but yes i do but shut up 0.63

00:40:27.720 you're not my real dad i know exactly we've done this live on the show me finding out that my phone 0.97

00:40:34.560 knows my fucking steps and now i feel totally surveilled right and also it does kind of take 0.91

00:40:40.620 over your brain right yeah i've gone through denial bargaining i mean i will say there are 0.99

00:40:47.320 a bunch of really hilarious genuine little like influencers and cottage industries and whatever

00:40:55.060 about like how to juke the stats on your pedometer right what is wrong with people

00:41:01.580 totally well this is the thing that i told you about my nephew just like getting one

00:41:05.240 shaking his wrist and figuring out that that did it there was also a video that i found where they

00:41:11.560 attached a pedometer to an electric drill oh just and then just like four thousand steps

00:41:16.760 yeah totally you're just cheating yourself at that point like no one else cares about this

00:41:21.800 unless it's for like a workplace wellness nightmare program like why do this you have never

00:41:26.700 had stronger high school vice principal energy than when you just said, you're only cheating.

00:41:33.180 I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed.

00:41:37.720 Everyone on the internet today.

00:41:40.120 So here's where things I think get interesting in the research. The thing that matters really

00:41:46.180 the most, and there does seem to be quite a bit of consensus around this, is consistency.

00:41:50.880 Oh, yeah.

00:41:51.420 Moving around and moving around regularly and getting into the habit of moving around

00:41:55.760 are all good things and it appears that the most important ingredient in consistency regardless of

00:42:04.240 how long you spend doing activity the most important thing is like regular activity right

00:42:10.060 yeah it appears that the most important ingredient in consistency it's liking the thing oh do you

00:42:16.880 like it do you like moving around in the way that you're moving around yeah you're gonna do it more

00:42:21.580 regularly yeah that's the thing that matters for your health is if you're doing something

00:42:26.280 consistently which happens when you do something fun that you like to wit me and my rowing machine

00:42:31.860 and also swimming those are two of my favorite things i am a water baby and walk in your little

00:42:36.780 dog walk in your little gentleman little gentleman that's right yeah uh and like to wit you riding

00:42:44.500 your bike around i like riding my little bike i like shouting at drivers what are some do you

00:42:49.560 have other faves i feel like mine are rowing machine swimming hiking i live in seattle and

00:42:55.380 you lose your visa if you don't go hiking at least once a week so there's that but then yeah i like

00:42:59.640 going rock climbing because it's social but it's not competitive oh that's a good one yeah that's

00:43:03.760 the thing is like it's only gonna work if you like like it and look forward to it i have a very

00:43:07.900 strong memory i think part of the reason rowing machine makes my list is that i have a very strong

00:43:13.400 memory of getting on my dad's rowing machine in the 80s when I was like a kid and being like what's

00:43:20.300 he doing with this thing what's it all about and I got on it and started doing what I had seen him

00:43:24.860 do on the rowing machine and I was like this is an exercise this is just a ride he's just like

00:43:30.800 doing a ride so that's what it does for you it just felt like a game it felt like you're just

00:43:36.940 going like we back and forth on this sliding seat and that's ultimately kind of arbitrary too like

00:43:42.220 whatever you find fun is due to like deep childhood needs or like my own weird anti-competitive stuff

00:43:48.000 but like it's just going to be different for different people it seems like the only thing

00:43:51.800 you can say from the research is that like try to get exercise and like do something you like

00:43:55.740 absolutely that's about it i will say i am similarly in the camp of individual only but 0.99

00:44:01.140 mostly because as a fat person moving in front of other people is a goddamn mind yeah people 0.98

00:44:07.960 are the fucking worst right so like i am also in camp solo like if friends are like we're all 1.00

00:44:13.120 gonna go for a hike i'm like have fun yeah i'll go on a separate one by myself have you had shitty 0.99

00:44:17.280 things happen you've gone on hikes with other people absolutely not like hugely shitty but

00:44:21.300 like just enough to make you feel out of place just makes you like aware of it yeah like a lot

00:44:25.980 of check like are you doing okay right like a lot of that where i'm just like i don't it's just all

00:44:31.000 little reminders you know i mean nothing terrible nothing the worst ever but like

00:44:36.340 no one's checking in with anybody else it's just the fat lady yeah you you want to be at home in

00:44:41.540 your body and i feel like that like takes you out of the experience that people totally and it

00:44:45.200 reminds you that other people are seeing you first through your body right yeah and also just like

00:44:50.200 other people being like good job like you know what i mean where you're just like i also don't

00:44:54.600 need that yeah pretend like i don't exist like you do with everybody else yeah just quietly resent

00:44:59.520 that i have my headphones in oh yeah judge me for that pick a weird hiking beef with me you should 0.99

00:45:07.760 have one of those fucking bluetooth speakers when you go hiking and then everyone will hate you 0.98

00:45:10.820 because of that they won't hate me because i have a bluetooth speaker they'll hate me because i'm 0.99

00:45:15.140 using it to play lmfao at top all year those are the only times in nature that i like genuinely 0.97

00:45:23.820 consider committing murder i'm like someone with a fucking bluetooth speaker out here 0.97

00:45:27.520 as we're talking about consistency and movement, right. And enjoyment of movement. There is a 0.99

00:45:35.340 little bit of evidence that shows that the actual process of counting your steps may reduce or

00:45:43.220 eliminate that enjoyment. Oh, I'm sending you a brick and I apologize that it is such a brick.

00:45:49.260 Oh, it's fine. You don't have to apologize. There you go. All right. This one's pretty big,

00:45:52.560 Aubrey. It's big. I know. I'm sorry. You owe me an apology. I do. I did already.

00:45:57.520 10,000 words per day.

00:45:58.400 Okay.

00:45:59.880 For your health?

00:46:00.780 For my health.

00:46:01.420 For my brain health.

00:46:02.420 When we know that our walking habits are being recorded, for instance, we're more likely

00:46:06.460 to walk, but we also take less pleasure in strolling.

00:46:09.380 Duke University professor Jordan Etkin argued that it's because the act of measuring the

00:46:13.440 output makes enjoyable activities feel more like work, which reduces their enjoyment.

00:46:18.340 To test the hypothesis, Etkin coordinated six studies involving tracking various activities

00:46:22.960 such as reading and walking.

00:46:24.200 In one, 95 college students were asked to choose whether or not to wear a pedometer all day.

00:46:29.480 Some could see the step count while others could not.

00:46:31.840 At the end of the day, they were asked to report how much they enjoyed walking.

00:46:34.880 Those who could see the steps ticking up throughout the day did end up walking more,

00:46:38.540 but reported less enjoyment.

00:46:40.300 The results suggest, Etkin wrote, that measurement reduced enjoyment even among people who chose to be measured.

00:46:46.680 Which is to say, even when we think we want answers, the results might make us crabby.

00:46:51.780 I relate because I just found out about my 8,000 steps and I'm livid totally. And your brain like 0.63

00:46:56.440 latches onto it in a way that's really annoying and doesn't feel good. Right. Right. What I have

00:47:02.400 noticed about myself, this is entirely anecdotal is that when I got really fixated on 10,000 steps

00:47:09.700 a day, I felt like absolute garbage every day that I fell short. Yeah. It wasn't like the 10,000

00:47:17.920 steps days I felt really good about myself for doing a good thing I felt good but that was sort

00:47:23.520 of the baseline right and if I fell short of that baseline I felt like I was a failure and I felt

00:47:28.680 like my health was at stake right again if you like tracking if you feel like it's working for

00:47:34.140 you great go for it yeah there are some people that love it go to town yeah but if it feels bad

00:47:39.800 to you that might be worth listening to right it might be worth finding something that feels good

00:47:44.840 to you. The key is setting goals that you can always

00:47:46.860 achieve. I'm going to give the final word

00:47:48.740 on 10,000 Steps to

00:47:50.700 Mike Brannan, who is the National

00:47:52.840 Lead for Physical Activity at

00:47:54.720 Public Health England,

00:47:56.160 who says, quote, there's no

00:47:58.660 health guidance that exists to back

00:48:00.880 it. Booyah!

00:48:03.040 Boom! 10,000 Steps!

00:48:04.840 You don't need it! I'm so haunted by

00:48:06.680 learning my steps today, Aubrey. I'm so sorry.

00:48:08.880 I think you can turn it off if you want to turn it

00:48:10.800 off. I would like to turn it off. You don't have to wear

00:48:12.800 that stone around 0.98

00:48:14.680 your neck we got 8 000 steps today it's bullshit everyone knows that i haven't done cocaine and i 0.99

00:48:19.680 got 8 000 steps i don't know what to do with this how much coke did you get offered dude people were 0.99

00:48:24.200 emailing me and i'm like please do not offer me illegal drugs in writing on like you know twitter 0.78

00:48:32.620 dms or whatever we're like who fucking knows who else can read that like please do not do this 0.78

00:48:44.680 Thank you. 0.89

Maintenance Phase - April 25, 2023

The 10,000 Steps Myth

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