Devlin Brown at the watercooler: Not every step you take is the same

Q: My spouse is obsessed with his step counter and completing 10,000 steps a day. It is driving me crazy. Can you arm me with anything I can show him to stop this incessant madness?

The good news is that you are not the first, nor the last, who will complain of a spouse walking all over you. The bad news is he may well have extended his life — and his stepping — by a few more years.

The fitness game is an odd one, sometimes it feels like we take one step forward only to take two steps back. It’s therefore important that you find something you enjoy — or can do — as you’re more likely to stick to it, as your spouse has proven.

Step into his shoes for a minute. He is chasing daily exercise goals. That he is out of step with you may well put strain on your patience — and heart — but his heart is getting a good workout. Maybe approach this with baby steps. Encourage him to go for long walks in the park that would get him closer to his magical 10,000 steps so that he doesn’t pace up and down the bedroom between 9pm and 11pm.

However, if you really want to know the truth, the 10,000-step target came into existence through a marketing gimmick. Here’s some homework: try to find a fitness trend that didn’t explode into popular culture through clever marketing.

In 1964, the marketing team for an early pedometer piggybacked on the buzz around the Tokyo Olympics and called their device Manpo-kei, or 10,000-step meter. Why? Because the Japanese character for 10,000 looks a lot like a man walking, or your husband for that matter.

Since then, 10,000 has been the magic number. That’s quite random by anyone’s estimate, but it turns out that despite its genesis being the boardroom of a creative agency, 10,000 steps brings one very close to the standardised exercise guidelines.

Remember the 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity guidelines? Broad, sure, but eerily close to what one will hit if you do complete 10,000 steps a day. An article in Scientific American published earlier this year quotes William Kraus, a scientist at Duke University who helped draw up the US exercise recommendations.

He explains that energy expenditure is related to health outcomes, and that different people walk with varying degrees of efficiency. Older people expend more energy walking than younger people. The article says that 8,000 to 10,000 steps is enough for people under 60 to reach the exercise guidelines, while 6,000 to 8,000 is enough for people over 60 to achieve the target.

Last year a study called “Prospective associations of daily step counts and intensity with cancer and cardiovascular disease incidence and mortality and all-cause mortality” was published in JAMA Internal Medicine and JAMA Neurology. It takes the discussion a step further. Their source was UK Biobank data for 78,500 individuals with a mean age of 61 years.

The authors write: “The findings suggest that up to 10,000 steps per day may be associated with a lower risk of mortality and cancer and cardiovascular disease incidence.” Someone needs to buy that Japanese creative director a Bells.

Lower risk

They go further. “Steps performed at a higher cadence may be associated with additional risk reduction, particularly for incident disease.”

The bit that got me excited is: “Incidental steps were also associated with lower risk of mortality and morbidity. Nevertheless, purposeful steps and particularly peak-30 cadence were consistently associated with lower risk of all-cause mortality and cancer and CVD morbidity and mortality in this study.”

Being observational the study could not make causal claims, but rather draw associations. However, it does add credence, and cadence, to the 10,000-step trend.

This is good news for you. Tell your husband about the added health benefits if he gets his 10,000 steps done quickly, that way you’ll have a peaceful evening. It feels as though we have an opportunity to rewrite a proverb: a step in (good) time saves nine.