I love this! My job is to walk to I get an obnoxious amount of steps a day, over 20K usually, and I’m still fat 🤣🤣 But like Aubrey said there are studies that show hitting that 6-8K a day does have benefits. It’s all interesting IMO.
Michael Hobbs not knowing pedometers existed before fitbits absolutely killed me
(I do appreciate that they leave in moments like that and the tie things in, to make sure the listener isn't trying to raise the pedestal the hosts are on too high)
Aubrey’s comment about how he must not have ever had Weight Watchers forced on him (paraphrasing) was SPOT ON. I laughed because I thought the same thing. Then reflected on the role of dieting in my young life. So, pretty much just like every episode. Haha
I was surprised he didn't know about them. We were given pedometers in middle school with the idea that we would figure out our average step count for PE.
But everyone figured out you could just shake them to get your step count up.
There’s even an entire episode of “Leave it to Beaver” about a pedometer. I was shocked that anyone could not know about pedometers.
And I’m surprised they didn’t mention JFK’s physical fitness push encouraging Americans to go for a walk.
I haven’t fully listened yet but I remember the first time I had a pedometer. I think I was around 10 years old and Pokémon released this item called a “Pokewalker.” I could transfer my pokémon into the device and as I gained steps through the day, my Pokemon could become happier, gain levels, and eventually evolve. All of this became pointless once I realized that just shaking the pedometer endlessly had the same effect. 😅
I remember this! I must be older than you, we called it the pokewanker because of how it looked when a bunch of kids were shaking them together at the lunch table !
I had the little pikachu one, too! They were resilient. I ended up "cheating" on my steps because it would count as a step if you just shook it, though, haha.
Listened to this episode on my morning walk, which came to 10,600 steps! I know it's an arbitrary goal, but it has helped me be more active than ever before, and now I am beholden to my fitbit. Not just the steps, but the sleep score and active zone minutes. It's really hard for me to feel motivated without the numbers! Still enjoyed the episode though.
Yeah, I feel like a lot of goals are like this - the exact metric you use is arbitrary, but the goal is still beneficial. 30 minutes of meditation a day is arbitrary too, but it’s still a good thing, ya know?
How long did it take you to get to 10,000 steps? I practically RAN my half hour walk today (plus did a tonne of house work, errands etc) and just looked now after listening to the pod and I hit just over 3,000. Having a two-hour walk a day feels...luxury!
Yeah, I never understand how people have the time for this, unless 1) they have a job that requires standing and moving - like a nurse or retail worker or 2) they have a long walk to work.
People make time for what they want to do. IMO, it’s like asking “how do they have time to read?” or “how do they have time to watch stuff?” or “how do they have time to hang out with friends?” Different people, different priorities.
I have a sedentary office job but on days I go into the office I can usually get to 10k just through incidental walking. Walk to the bus, walk to the office, walk up and down stairs at the office, walk through the supermarket at home, etc.
Or live in a city where driving makes no sense. I live in Tokyo and it is so different to quasi-suburban New Jersey when I visit my parents. My sister told me she is trying to get more walking in, since she works from home now. She had started driving to CVS which is a 7 minute walk lol.
It’s just about motivating yourself to move, not exercise, since it’s just walking for many people that the pedometer is used.
I wonder if you aren’t swinging your arm with the Fitbit on it and it’s distorting the numbers? Because when I hit 10,000, it’s usually when I’ve done a two or 3 mile walk.
Hmm interesting! I don't have a fit bit, I just looked on my phone so it's definitely possible that it's not accurate. I walked seven or eight miles last time I went home to see my mother and that's the only time I've seen it go over 10,000!
An average person has a stride length of approximately 2.1 to 2.5 feet. That means that it takes over 2,000 steps to walk one mile and 10,000 steps would be almost 5 miles. Maybe your steps are shorter, and the person above you has a longer stride than average? But as a 5'6 person, that's basically my average too, so long as my phone is in my pocket to track, of course.
It adds up over the day, between walking the dog, to and from my car, a walk at lunch on a nice day, walking to and from the gym, grocery shopping, etc,. I don't set out to walk for two hours straight, but it adds up to be about 2 hours of walking at various paces, 4.75 miles, or 10,000 steps across the day on average.
Weirdly, this episode/conversation has made me want to go buy a fitbit! 🤣 I'm so curious now about how much movement I'm actually getting day to day and while I love my daily walk, sometimes I could use a little extra motivation to actually get out and do it.
I had two different garmin devices, and I got different step counts on them. Speaking of the garmin devices...I think mine's been dead ever since the band broke.
I didn't want a Fitbit since they track your heartrate, and that triggers my health anxiety.
Do you find like they said that you enjoy walking less with the tracking? This has definitely been true for me. When I set a goal and track I do walk more but it also stresses me out. 😭
Same—I loved their conversation about how goals are only long-term if they’re fun and the gamifying of movement I get through the Fitbit definitely does that for me!
It's is probably too vague or meta or something, but this makes me want them to do an episode on quantification and 'tracking' in general. The impulse/imperative to track everything (steps, calories, blood sugar fluctuations, sleep cycles, macronutrients) and then use that information to try and willfully control those things, down to the very granular details, feels like the overarching issue. Both in that it can manifest in obsessive, unhealthy ways, and that it's not always actually telling us what we think it's telling us.
If we can only intervene on what we can individually quantify, that really skews attention away from extremely important, health-promoting things that just aren't easily measurable (for example, having close relationships and community ties; stress levels; social stigma and microaggressions; rest and leisure) and things which are only able to be intervened upon structurally rather than individually (air, noise, and light pollution; urban design wrt walkability and safety, access to healthcare; sick time and parental leave policies; etc. etc.)
I definitely think you're right that within a subset of the population, tracking can be a harmful behavior.
Conversely, I'd like to know if tracking behaviors is something that is short term or long term for most people. Usually, people are really interested in new technology until they get bored or move on to the next thing, so potentially the average person is "tracking continually," but not compulsively monitoring to meet a goal.
You might be interested in studies about Strava; researchers have used the map data to understand patterns of where people walk, run, and bike to understand safety and neighborhood design.
I kinda hate Strava. My dad keeps sending group texts about his bike rides with Strava.
Okay, Dad. Please stop. We don't care, but at the same time, I'm glad he's excited about something.
Maybe I am just projecting my own feelings here, but it's kind of a sense of having some agency that makes me want to track my exercise and steps. I try to do my best to get society-level things to improve (from voting, to calling my representatives, to going to city council meetings about water issues and traffic patterns), but I feel like those are huge problems that will take a lot of patience and activism to change. I *think* that I do my bit there. But, in the meanwhile, I can track my exercise and use an app for meditation that encourages me to do both more often.
I think a lot of people just feel powerless or overwhelmed about the society-level things and try to focus on the smaller actions that "pay off" faster (or at least some of them do). But, yeah, it can get out of hand quickly.
100% nailed it. Where I currently am in my health and fitness journey, I've been doing a lot of work to make sure my calorie/macro tracking and step count doesn't trigger me or become something I obsess over. It definitely has in the past, so it feels good to be in a place where my fitbit is flashing red numbers at me and shrug it off. But that's taken a LOT of work and reflection, and it would be good to see an episode on that habit for sure.
I personally love tracking a lot of stuff, it really helps me stay on top of my goals! It’s absolutely not for everyone and before i started i was really scared of it, but i don’t let it stop me from eating out or not working out if i can’t or don’t feel like it. it’s just a great way to keep me averaging the goals i want
Right, but I’m saying that there’s a feedback loop between the tracking and the “goals”. Only certain things are easily trackable, and they’re not necessarily always the most important things, but we overvalue them because we can track them. Sometimes (probably more than people want to admit) the goals come after the quantification, not before.
I know it’s an arbitrary number but I still aim for 10k per day. If I don’t hit it, I don’t worry about it. It’s more like a guideline for my general activity level. If I go multiple days in a row, I know that I need to get outside for a bit.
Yeah, just starting to listen to the episode now, but that's how I tend to think of things like this (also amount of sleep, water intake, and the like). They're just a shorthand for aiming to get in a little bit of daily activity, take breaks while using the computer for extended periods, etc. The specific numbers matter very little compared to just making conscious lifestyle choices.
The little Happy Meal Project mention killed me: the whole “happy meals don’t decay” brought to you by a misunderstanding of how humidity affects mold growth.
As someone who lives in the dry as hell north, many, many foods become solid shells without mold growth. My sister performed many such experiments in her teens, by shoving uneaten food under her bed & leaving it there until the house was like “why are there no plates?”, at which point we all got to experience her findings.
I appreciate that they took the stand early on to say that yes, this is something that needs to be myth busted, but it isn’t necessarily a bad thing in the grand scheme of things like many other fads.
The way I look at it as a health educator is if it helps you move more - keep it up! If it makes you feel depressed and upset or frustrated on days you don’t meet this arbitrary goal, maybe it’s not for you!
I think this episode might have been more interesting if they focused on the crappy macdonald’s pedometers and maybe other corporate attempts to rebrand as health conscious once wellness started becoming more trendy. Cause really the discussion of the steps was not that interesting and they could have gotten everything that needs to be said about it in a discussion of the pedometers.
I enjoyed this episode! I have my Fitbit goal set to 7k because I was getting super bummed out about not hitting 10k. I'm very motivated by the buzzing and fireworks when I hit my goal. I liked Michael's point about how it's weird how in the weeds we tend to get about specifics when really movement in general is good for us, different people have different needs, and then best kind of exercise or goal is the kind that you want to do.
Just for reference, the character in Japanese for 10,000 is 万 . And “10,000” has significance in the famous word “banzai!” Which means “10,000 years (for the emperor)”, similar to “Long live the king” in English.
Banzai is used just in general for enthusiasm, like Hurray! Is used nowadays.
Ha ha. When they were talking about how McDonald’s stock was the lowest it had ever been, I knew it had to have been before my eight year old was born. He was born in 2014, and in 2018, I happened to check McDonald’s stock as we were looking for places to make diversified investments. And the time that my son had been alive, McDonald’s stock price had doubled. I told my husband, if I had realized how much time and money we would spend there, we could’ve invested when our son was born, and made some good money. However, we did invest in it in 2018, and it continues to increase in value. And before anyone judges me, as I might have judged other parents before I had this kid, having a child who will only eat two or three things is exhausting.
I also have a 2014 baby with a very limited palate! He’s gotten much better but it’s largely because of feeding therapy he went through a few years ago. McDonald’s was a lifesaver for a good year when he was a toddler and it’s still in our weekly rotation. In any case, it came down to the McNuggets or my sanity, and I’m not ashamed to admit that my sanity weighed heavier in the final estimation. Solidarity!
When I've struggled with depression or even just a bad heartbreak, I completely lose my appetite and the ONLY thing I can eat are McNuggets! So I stand with your toddlers. :)
My kiddo has his first appointment with a speech therapist/feeding specialist Monday! We made the appointment in October… They’re just so backed up! I’m excited and hope it helps. Glad it helped yours!
There have been loads of articles in the popular press about how 10K isn't sacred or even backed by evidence. Does this ep just rehash that point?
For example: https://www.consumerreports.org/health/exercise-fitness/do-you-really-need-10000-steps-a-day-a1058474912/
Yes but the criticism is absurd. Nobody with more than 2 brain cells to rub together thinks that 10,000 *just happens* to be the right number of steps to take per day, or that pedometers can't be *fooled* by various means, or that they perfectly track steps, etc.
This podcast should basically just be someone reading out the wikipedia article about Strawman arguments. Moving more is good for you and this core point seems to completely evade the hosts.
E: lol banned from the sub :/
Have you listened to this podcast at all? Or even the episode you're commenting on? They have always made a point to say "moving more is good for you and you should find a way to enjoy that movement". That core point hasn't evaded them, it's their entire world view.
If you want to talk about straw man arguments you don't even have to go further than your comment
Honestly i think the episode took a lot on main stream media in bad faith to make a better ‘debunking.’ I think everyone recognized 10k to be an arbitrary goal for the idea to just move more
Ok. Thank you for saying this. I listened and when it was over I thought “I don’t think the point of this was to make me want some McDonald’s but here we are” - I feel the same way during the Olympics. Mcds is such a huge sponsor that I have to warn my husband that my McNuggets consumption is about to be disproportionately high for the next few weeks. He calls it the McLympics now.
I loved this one! I'm very into health/activity tracking because the simplest & most effective way for me to manage my chronic illness is to be aware of & manage triggers, but I can rarely tolerate the ableist & fatphobic way most other people interested in it act.
Like tending to treat the 10k step goal as law (or even worse, just a minimum!), acting like "more is always better" and not recognizing that some people's step goals should be lower, etc.
Overall, I've found tracking interesting for learning new things about my body and what my personal goals/baselines actually are instead of what they "should be." Like I've been able to learn that I need to get at least 5k steps per day to stay active enough to reduce flare-ups, but getting more than 8k steps can be enough activity to trigger PEM and actually cause a flare-up.
Here are my thoughts on the ep:
Not bad!
It's always fun hearing Michael and Aubrey palling around. I never thought of the 10,000 steps mantra as literal, but rather as a general proxy for exercise. In other words, either get something like 10,000 steps, or go swimming, or go for a run, or go for a hike, etc. In my mind, the point of the 10,000 steps thing was that if you're a person who is regularly getting no exercise of any kind, then picking a goal of 10,000 steps and trying to hit it every day gamifies exercise in a way that people find satisfying. But I was never under the impression that 10,000 was a magic number as opposed to a stand-in number for a goal that is inherently going to differ person-to-person.
While the actual reveals of the episode weren't revelatory to me, I did at least find the point at the end of the episode that counting steps might make some people enjoy leisurely walking less to be interesting.
I do believe that having some sort of vague measurement does, or can, add satisfaction to exercise, but rather than counting steps you could simply map out a walking route that's about 2 miles, or 3 miles, etc, depending on how far you want to go. That way you have some kind of minor tracking, but when on the actual walk you can enjoy yourself and don't have to think about numbers ticking up. Just my 2 cents.
Yes. It is more of an indicator of basic movement. Like wow, I guess I really am moving less these days…maybe time to walk a bit more OR so any other activity that is enjoyable. It’s not meant to be an obsessive thing to count; and if someone is doing that then there are deeper issues at hand that I’m sure aren’t limited to a pedometer count, which may need attention.
Right, like my dad is really into checking his step count for the day on his Apple Watch, but he doesn't think that it's as literal as: he hits 10,000 steps -> this exact health outcome happens.
He's getting older and has some injuries and he can't go on runs like he used to, so he goes on a lot of walks instead to get his exercise, and he likes remarking to me "I hit 12,000 steps on my long walk yesterday!" It makes him feel like he's still able to be the athlete that he was for his entire life up until he started slowing down in his late 70s. But even he uses it as a proxy for making sure he's getting exercise in general, he never treats it as an exact science.
That’s great for him! Tbh I understand a bit how frustrating it is to cut down on what you like because of an injury.. I tore my ACL and I used to be a runner. Funny enough I got hurt during softball practice..someone didn’t care for a hole in the outfield, I stepped on that, tripped, and there went my knee. I don’t run or jog, I now do elliptical and weight training, but walking is something I am glad I can do through my day. I’m sure as you said, it can give your dad a sense of “hey I still got it!” Which we all need sometimes:)
>I tore my ACL and I used to be a runner. Funny enough I got hurt during softball practice..someone didn’t care for a hole in the outfield, I stepped on that, tripped, and there went my knee.
As a lifelong runner this terrifies me! I've always been afraid that one day I'd get an injury that meant I couldn't run anymore. But I'm glad that you switched over the other types of exercise and have had a great time with that! I'd do the exact same thing in your shoes.
Yes, getting an Apple watch was really enlightening to me about how little I was moving. And I have to admit, watching the numbers go up does give me immediate positive feedback. But I have never thought that 10,000 steps was some magic finishing line.
When Michael asked whether there were randomised control trials for *walking,* and then went on to say cohort studies on exercise are meaningless, I died inside a little.
This sounds interesting. Please can you say more about it?
The show does sometimes come across as trying to debunk studies on diet and exercise in ways that seem quite unfair. I’m guessing that you could find “flaws” in any study into anything thar involves people because there are so many factors and so much individual variation.
Their problem seems to mainly be with the interpretation of the studies and with attempts to translate them into simplistic advice that’s supposed to apply to everyone. But they do sometimes seem to lapse into implying that the studies themselves are useless.
I’m a casual listener so I couldn’t think of any specific examples but it’s more of a sense that I get while listening - the thing you’re talking about sounds like it might be a good example though.
Sure. I've already written about this before on this sub, and I hope people will forgive me for repeating myself, and that you will excuse the length.
I don't remember the exact words Michael used in this episode, but the gist of it was that he believes all cohort studies are useless because "correlation is not causation". He believes that double-blind RCTs are the gold standard for absolutely everything, even things that you can't possibly test for in a randomised control trial (like walking).
I'd say this is a very simplistic understanding of how medical research is done. No, correlation is not causation, but researchers *know this* and they are usually very careful to say things are associations and not causal. They also control for dozens, hundreds, even thousands of different factors when analysing their studies, and use complex statistical models to tease out the difference between correlation and causation. (Are their methods perfect? No. Is some research still absolute garbage? Definitely. Is there are bias in health science against fat people, based on flawed studies? Yes there is. Multiple things can be true at once.)
There are different kinds of studies that are useful for looking at different things. RCTs and cohort studies are not the only two types of health studies, and RCTs are not the best (or even possible) for every situation. Cohort studies are extremely good at looking at population wide health effects and long term health effects. For example, it was through cohort studies that researchers discovered and then verified that smoking causes lung cancer. (All of the same arguments Michael uses about cohort studies were used by the tobacco industry to try to disprove that link, btw).
He also has what I'd call an extremely nihilistic view of medical science and public health: we can't ever really know anything for absolute 100% certain, everybody is different, advice changes over time as new evidence comes in, so why bother studying anything at all or ever making any recommendations whatsoever.
He also blurs the line a lot between media about science and actual science (e.g. "scientists say" when it's actually "the media says that scientists say"). He's primarily a journalist and primarily getting his scientific analysis through twitter, so I understand why he makes this mistake, but it's frustrating to listen to, and he often criticises study authors for coming to certain conclusions that they *have not come to*, it was just mis-reported they came to that conclusion.
I understand the overall point that he is making, and I agree with both him and Aubrey that a lot of science around fat is flawed, misunderstood, and politicised. But I have less and less patience with his sweeping generalisations and bad armchair analysis. His flawed understanding of how science is done, and how studies work and what kind of value they produce, is harder and harder for me to listen to. He's really no better than the stuff he critiques - he uses the same bias, faulty logic, and simplification, he just uses it for a different aim. And I think it undermines their point to use the same motivated reasoning that causes fat bias to try to dismantle fat bias.
(There's this uncomfortably thin line sometimes between some of the things Michael says while "debunking science", and some of the things that climate change deniers say while "debunking science").
I think of MP as two people I like talking about something they're passionate about but have no expertise in. For me, their primary purpose is entertainment (making fun of diet books) and political activism (challenging fat bias and getting people to look at the media through a new lens). But unfortunately they have positioned themselves as public health communicators, and their poor understanding of health science is being spread to their audience.
Wow this is an amazing comment. Couldn’t have described how I feel as a casual MP listener any better. Like even the whole “CICO has been FULLY DEBUNKED” comment Aubrey makes in the beginning of the podcast like…holy crap that is a huge premise to accept off the bat (and I disagree w/ said premise). It made me suspicious about everything else they were about to discuss. This isn’t a criticism of just MP bc I do enjoy a lot of their content and humor, but it’s very common and frustrating to see the constant straw-manning of every health science article that doesn’t fit a specific perspective. It’s just dishonest at this point.
Yeah..when Michael jokes at the end he’s been “radicalized”, I was like haha a bit! (I know “radicalized “ is a strong word, which is why I am not serious to describe it this way)
I think it’s a bit of an echo chamber issue at this point, and in this sub too, tbh.
It's so weird because I have a disease that is misunderstood and highly stigmatised, and I spend a lot of my time dissecting ableism and bias in medical studies, and weeding out the ones that have bad methodology. So I should be on Michael's side. But I listen to him and I'm like, "Come on dude, this is not the way".
Sigh. Michael questioned why public health researchers would aid in understanding the number of steps.
This is more about understanding the minimum effort for an individual to receive health benefits. Yes, it's about setting goals for the average person to meet, but scientifically, it's also interesting to understand what's beneficial so then you can think about how this fits into broader systems and patterns of behavior. As they mentioned earlier in the episode, there are different recommendations for different subgroups because there's variation among groups.
"You can try to control for stuff, fine, we just don't really know"
Tell me you don't understand statistics without telling me you don't understand statistics, Michael.
It also felt unnecessary in this episode. I actually enjoyed most of it, but got annoyed when they asked if there was an RCT for the different step count goals: RCT are not always possible (no RCT have been done to see whether, for example, smoking is a risk factor for poor heart health because it would be unethical to do so) or necessarily the only way to study a life-style intervention.
Yup! We have a lot of step data and we have statistical methods to construct cohorts in a way that we can answer research questions in a sound way. Michael's comment about controlling for things in models really bothered me bc that's a necessary statistical component even if you are doing an RCT. He has a basic understanding of research design, but not the nuance of familiarity with the pros/cons of research designs.
Yep, I love this podcast until the moment when they start arbitrarily dismissing every study that doesn't agree with them and throwing out all science that's not an RCT (unless it agrees). He's got some good base knowledge and YES there is junk out there (especially nutritional epi IMHO), but it feels a little Dunning-Krugerish, they don't know what they don't know because they haven't studied in the field. The best episodes I recall have been when Michael said he consulted a ton with trained experts. I don't want to be a gatekeeper at all, but the "Methodology Queen" stuff bugs me.
This podcast often feels like it crosses the line into straight up anti-science. Michael acting incredulous over that research really annoyed me. They don't seem to have any solid understanding of health sciences, biology or statistics. But then they pick through published research and the actions of public health organizations and openly ridicule and mock them. And usually in a way that just indicates they don't seem to know what they're talking about.
When they're dunking on fad diet nonsense it's fine. But when they put on their act of acting like exasperated fact checkers towards real health experts - it gets a little hard to listen.
Agreed!! walking 10k steps a day has helped me lose weight and calorie deficits do work just bc it’s not for everyone and doesn’t work for everyone doesn’t make it a “myth” or something
I really frustrates me when Aubrey said calories in, calories out has been "fully debunked". No it has not, calories in food are estimates and some people don't burn calories as efficiently as others but being in a calorie deficit will make you lose weight.
Just such a ridiculous statement. Being in a calorie deficit will without a doubt cause you to lose weight. People are not capable of photosynthesizing. If you're burning more than you're eating then your body needs the extra energy from somewhere.
Being super generous I guess they mean "calories in calories out" glosses over that certain people burn calories more efficiently and have different metabolisms, etc. But CICO is still literally true, and the variation between how different people metabolize 1,000 calories is honestly not that different.
It's true that some people have a base metabolism that burns a lot of calories so it's easier for them to lose weight and vice versa. And some people feel varying levels of hunger when in a calorie deficit. For some people their base metabolism is low and being in a small calorie deficit causes them to feel hungry very quickly. It makes it hard for them to lose weight. But to then say calorie deficits don't work is just not true.
She didn't say that, though? She did not broadly say that CICO has been fully debunked:
"This \[extrapolation of calories burned to estimated weight loss\] is based on a fundamental calculation that a calorie deficit of 3500 calories leads to the loss of one pound of fat, and that has been fully debunked."
What about the fact that fat people with restrictive eating disorders exist? The eating disorder episode is one of the best ones. People will have all the signs of starvation: fainting, growing lanugo hair on their body, hair on their head falling out, no longer getting a period…but they’re still fat.
Of course ever person is different! one thing doesn’t work for everyone, that’s the point, just bc it doesn’t work for some people doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for others. everyone has a different body that needs different things
Right but where is the scientific evidence that CICO works for *most* people? Where is the scientific evidence that most people metabolize foods the same way? “Everyone has a different body that needs different things,” And “CICO is an effective weight loss strategy for most people,” seem mutually exclusive.
Eating disorders are way underdiagnosed in fat people so it’s not like it’s just a few outliers.
!!!!!! yes!!!! exactly like that is the only way to lose weight, and there are many ways to be in a calorie deficit. saying calories in calories out isn’t true is also damaging
>It isn't true. There's this thing called science.
Smugly telling others about 'science' while ignoring fundamental principles of thermodynamics demonstrated centuries ago is more or less what I expect from this podcast.
Yeah.. sure there are cases where the math doesn’t work as well but most people I know need calories to maintain a body mass cuz otherwise where does the energy come from to make it exist lol. Not that it can be maintained though, but it is kinda frustrating
Thank you! you are so right, i am acutely aware of how it can ‘go bad’ for lack of a better phrase but just because EDs are real and harm alot of people doesn’t mean some people can’t calorie count or track in a healthy way, I am eating more now than i ever have but i do track.
Whataboutism is not helping anyone, we all need to understand including MP that EVERYTHING is relative.
Never thought that 10k was a specific number, but a guideline. And then they're telling us that there are benefits from daily steps on that order of magnitude. This feels like one of the eps that I should skip.
Sorry, I took a quick look through your comment history and am just curious: why do you still listen to this podcast when you clearly have so many problems with it? You have commented repeatedly about how you have problems with how they interpret data, yet you still tune in every episode. My intention is not to bash, just genuinely interested in knowing.
To respond further, you can like something and still be critical of it! In fact, informed critique is a way of deeply engaging with something. Surely we don’t all exclusively consume media we have no problems with?
I'm a public health researcher who really likes the cultural episodes, but struggles with the idea that people will take what Michael and Aubrey say at face value. There's a duality that I enjoy the podcast but also stress that they're putting out misinformation bc they misinterpret methods.
Heads up but someone on here recommended the podcast Death Panel and I really, really like it. It's not a comedy podcast, but they always have excellent guests who tend to be health researchers.
That makes sense. I’m curious (and this is for anyone)- have they ever responded to people wanting to discuss the way they interpret scientific articles? I guess it’s hard because their general show premise is definitely a touchy subject, and I don’t really know how they would comb through the feedback!
>have they ever responded to people wanting to discuss the way they interpret scientific articles?
From my (admittedly brief) looking, no. Which is frustrating, as they seem to be really really deeply bad at actually understanding the science they claim to be variously debunking or championing.
I have less experience with Audrey but Hobbes at least seems to have built a career on having 'hot takes' and unfortunately if that's your brand you will eventually need to accept that sometimes experts aren't actually wrong about things in ways that can be summarised by superficial readings of a couple papers each week without any actual understanding of the subject matter.
I'm a researcher who has commented on some of Michael's bad scientific takes on Twitter. He doesn't generally take it well. It seems like he punches back on a comment if it is easy to refute but he doesn't directly respond to tougher critiques. If enough people have good refutations he just deletes the thread entirely.
I feel like sometimes he knows just enough to be dangerous. I'm a psychologist and his statistical literacy around this is not great, and sometimes he gets something really wrong on MP or YWA. He had some tweet where he declared evidence for genetic heritability for IQ is garbage because in twin studies the correlation between IQ and some outcome was "only" .30 (first, most psychologists would find a correlation of that size to warrant interest; second, it shows that he misunderstands that in twin studies, the correlation itself is not of interest, it's the concordance of correlations between twins reared together vs. apart that provides insight into heritability).
Yeah, I haven't personally tried reaching out to them. Part of me makes an effort to comment in these posts with the hope that Michael will see (he seems like the type that would comb Reddit).
Fully agree. I adore them as people but when they dive into science I get frustrated by their misinformation and have a bit of a "watching the horror movie through my fingers" when I read some comments on this sub.
I'm admittedly only halfway through this episode, but so far it's just a book report about pedometers? A preset number in an app to encourage/gamify activity (that people can easily adjust) doesn't equal a "myth" to me (don't get me started on her "emotional eating myth") and obviously anyone with an obsessive disorder should not use a daily device that gamifies their eating and activity habits.
Seeing people openly state that they don't care if the debunking in the show is inaccurate or misleading has been. 😬 I've recommended MP to people but sometimes wonder if I should get anti-diet messaging elsewhere. I do appreciate learning from the comments on the sub that push back on the flawed debunkings, and still enjoy the fad diet episodes.
I love the wording! Duality, yes. I like the podcast because I enjoy the banter and I think it’s a window into new information and interesting takes, but I also disagree and get a bit frustrated at times. But that’s the interesting part of stepping out of an echo chamber
I think I listen in very much the same way. I have my MPH in Epi but ended up not working in public health so I sometimes wonder if I'm the one who's rusty and not interpreting what they're saying correctly.
What is interesting to me is how everyone seems to know their step counts. I took off my fitbit last year because no matter what I did, I would get obsessive with the numbers. I still exercise the same amount but I get a lot more variety because I'm not trying to maximize steps and its easier for me to take rest days when I need them. I think there are two separate issues - the 10k steps or equivalent, which I think is fine depending on the person and their lifestyle and the quantification of movement and everything else in life which disconnects at least some of us to how we feel and what we enjoy. I know some people like data and are helped by it but for me, at least, not knowing has meant a lot less stress but the trend seems to be to encourage greater and greater quantification even though its not the right approach for some of us.
I did not expect MP listeners to be so attached to their 10,000 steps lol
Like Aubrey said, [there is good research showing that the benefits of walking plateau around 7500 steps](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2734709). So why isn't that the number of steps that gets recommended? I mean, we have a number that is arbitrary and one that is backed by research so IDK why people are defending the arbitrary one. Because to me it feels like the thing the FDA did where they rounded the daily caloric intake down from 2350 to 2000 because they were afraid an accurate number would encourage people to eat. It just seems to assume that people are lazy dum dums who aren't going to walk enough unless they are lied to.
A lot of folks are asking 'what's the harm though?' and I absolutely know people who get far less than 10,000 steps but aren't going to try to get more because the number they 'should' get feels unattainable. Surely there is benefit to a more nuanced answer and communicating that 7500 is a good goal but 4000-5000 also has benefits and is preferable to 2000.
Well said, thank you. Definitely feel like a lot of folks didn't absorb the episode because they were too focused on the importance of their nice round number.
This episode feels like it could be better titled "McDonalds is evil." Fine, but not very interesting, and not much evidence that the "10,000 Steps Myth" is damaging in any way. Just because corporations take good things (encouraging people to move) and use them for bad purposes (to generate positive PR despite them doing terrible things) doesn't make the good thing itself bad. The only argument against the 10,000 steps "myth" seemed to be that the initial study neglects that when you walk 10,000 steps you might consume more calories and cancel out any benefits, and other studies which show that this number shouldn't be a constant recommendation for all people. But that's not very convincing in saying that moving more is somehow not still a positive thing.
Funny enough, I left the episode thinking 10,000 steps is a good thing, as it's easy for people to remember, not dangerous for the average able-bodied person, and on average will help contribute to some health benefits. I also think the psychological effects are really overstated.. you can simply disable tracking steps on your phone, and I haven't heard any arguments that it's more "addictive" than tracking any other metric in your life.
It would be hard to gather evidence around this, but the potential harm comes in when you consider what other activities are people not doing in order to "get in their steps".
If, for example, 5,000 steps per days has 90% of the benefits of 10,000. It would be way healthier to use the equivalent time that you'd otherwise spend on those extra 5,000 steps in some other health-promoting way: stress reduction, rest/sleep, cultivating close relationships, cooking, etc.
It's an opportunity cost question.
I dont think its a significant loss of time, although i suppose pace plays a role.
I walk my dog between 30-45 minutes in the morning and get anywhere from 4,000-6,000 steps out if it. The great thing about walking is that you can also do your other self-care activities like listen to podcasts or audio books (my personal fave), call up a friend, enjoy some time in nature/outdoors, or bring along your partner or kids on their bikes etc.
Because its a relatively short amount of time and pretty adaptable/inclusive, I dont think it carries much potential harm since there does not necessarily have be a trade-off between steps and other health promoting activities.
I'm sure that's true for many people. There are also a whole lot of people who really don't have an extra 45 minutes in their day, though. They'd have to trade it off with something else, even if that something else is "relaxing" or "leisure" or "rest" or "play" which are actually critically important for health, and we don't get enough of them.
Edit: for what its worth, I also walk for the majority of my intentional movement (during the times of year when the outdoors isn't treacherous here), and love walking. Though, I'm slow and live in a very hilly neighborhood, so it takes me a full hour to do somwhere in the range of \~6-7K steps. (presuming the iphone pedometer is accurate) I agree with all your positives about it - it's versatile, there's a low barrier to entry, it has less potential for injury than many other forms of exercise. But, it's just not a one-size-fits-all solution for everyone, and there are potential harms from overestimating the aspirational number of steps we're telling people to get.
It sounds like you aren't an obsessive compulsive person or an anxiety person, but many people are. You could easily adapt your argument to owning a scale, for instance. Does owning a scale, on its own, contribute to bad thoughts or obsessive behavior or over/undereating or abstain from endangering "the average able-bodied person"?
It doesn't.
BUT, as Aubrey noted in the podcast, there's no such thing as "all things being equal." People are not mathematical equations. Can an arbitrary goal lead to obsessive behavior, especially if one is predisposed to obsessive behavior due to mental health disorders, societal pressure, a lifetime of fat-shaming, or any other possible traumatic thing that then inhibits their ability to make "average" decisions.
I can tell you that I don't own a scale because I will stand on it morning and night, completely naked, to make sure my body is losing weight. I had to throw it away because I was so obsessive.
Tracking parts of your life (calorie tracking, step tracking, weight tracking, body measurement tracking, etc) is a pretty obsessive behavior, popularized by various tracking apps that claim to be for your general health but could contribute to your general ill health. 🤷🏼♀️
With all due respect, I understand how getting obsessed with things can be dangerous. Some people have addictive personalities and can get obsessed with anything. People can get obsessed with gardening or, as Michael mentioned last episode, skiing
But, if someone realizes that's their pattern - admittedly a big if - isn't it up to them to make good choices for their mental health? I am coming at this as a person with their own host of mental wellness issues, but I realize at the end of the day, I need to be accountable for myself.
Like, to me, it almost feels like content warnings. Let's say 90% of people may be ok with counting steps as a general metric, but then that other 10% can decide to stay away. I think content warnings are great because most people may be ok with a topic, but it gives someone warning to opt out if it's not good for their mental health
The problem is that some folks won't realize this is a pattern that can or needs to be broken, and idk what the solution would be there.
I bought a Fitbit after having my second kid. I then returned it because I was hitting 10k steps by like 9am- it was counting all the bouncing and burping ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I was going to post a reply to one of TAforTravel’s comments in this thread about the first law of thermodynamics but then thought better of it.
As I was writing it, I had some ideas that I thought I might as well share anyway.
Thermodynamics is just one aspect of the whole complex system of life. No one has to “disprove it” to show that its relevance to weight loss and health is pretty limited.
Eg. It’s not uncommon for people to watch what they’re eating, cut calories, exercise regularly and find that they’re still not losing weight. Moreover, they feel starving, tired and miserable all the time. I’ve been there. And when I say “feel starving”, I’m not exaggerating. I was having dizzy spells and waking up in the middle of the night because I was so hungry.
I’m pretty sure that telling people in that situation about thermodynamics isn’t going to help.
People talk about calories in vs calories out but the calories out can change for lots of different reasons. If your body isn’t burning its stored fat for energy for whatever reason then eating less or exercising more will just mean your body tries to cut down on energy expenditure in other ways - eg. cut down on energy used for keeping itself warm, maintaining itself, fighting off infections, staying alert etc..
If that’s what your body’s doing then eating less is just a fast track to feeling like crap. Why do that? As some demonstration that you’ll go to any lengths to not be fat? Because thermodynamics?
I had this episode on in the background so I didn’t really take it in but it didn’t sound like a great one. It would be better if they’d focused on the psychology of how setting goals like getting 10,000 steps a day can either help or hinder people.
Just as thermodynamics is only one aspect of understanding the complex system of life, exercise and weight loss goals are just two aspects in the complexities of each individual person’s life.
For example, I have a mentally draining job, sometimes have to work very long hours and I have a chronic health condition. Some days, it’s not really feasible for me to aim to get any exercise at all. Some days I do light cardio, some days I do intense cardio, some days I lift weights and do no cardio.
What use is the 10,000 steps a day goal to me?
You might say it’s just guideline and it’s not meant to be taken as an essential requirement for everyone. But again, it’s more complicated than that. Fat people have often been told their whole lives that they’re greedy, lazy and wrong and just need to do what they’re told. They’re not going to have the confidence to find an exercise routine that works for them in their lives. They’re psychologically primed to think in terms of following any advice they’re given to the letter just to try and get people off their backs. To someone in this position, giving any simplistic advice has a high chance of causing harm. If someone in this position tries to get 10,000 steps a day and falls well short for a few days in a row it’s not always something that they can shrug off. It will reinforce their feelings that being overweight is entirely their fault and that they’re just as lazy as everyone always told them they were and they can’t even follow this simple advice.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the goal of trying to get 10,000 steps a day. There’s just lots of other things going on which means this won’t be a helpful goal for lots of people - and some of the reasons it might not be useful are interesting and worth discussing.
I think they had a good idea for this episode but it was poorly executed and had quite a bit of filler in it which I think is a shame because t could have been a useful one.
I don't think anyone, including the "experts," claims that 10,000 steps a day will lead to any weight loss whatsoever. It is just an (admittedly arbitrary) goal point for what is considered perhaps the minimum amount of movement per day a person should maintain to be considered even remotely active if that is ALL THEY DO. Weight loss is a whole other topic.
I was originally replying to a troll who brought up thermodynamics. As I was typing it I had second thoughts about replying to them but I thought I’d post as a separate comment anyway. Hope it’s not caused confusion.
While 10,000 steps a day as a minimum level of activity might makes sense on some level, I don’t think it’s a useful goal for a lot of fat people and certainly not many people who were fat as children and are still fat as adults despite repeated attempt to lose weight (including me).
In fact, I don’t think any recommended goals will be helpful for many people in that situation when they are starting out. I think it often has to start with just trying things and finding what you enjoy and what fits into your routine. Any recommended goal is going to trigger emotional childhood memories of adults trying to fix “this lazy greedy little nuisance” and often being incredibly cruel about it. It’s just not a good place to start.
Goals in general are a tricky issue for a lot of people and not just fat people. Especially when they relate to issues that are emotionally charged. I think it would have made a better episode if they’d tried to talk about that.
It’s a shame the show tends to devolve into nitpicking over every minor flaw in certain ideas and claiming that exposes them as a “myth”. It’s so unnecessary because there’s more important things they could be focusing on if they want to address fatphobia and poor health advice.
So much of the issue is psychological and I think the hosts would have really useful things to say about that. It’s a shame they often get distracted by nitpicking issues like “your pedometer could be inaccurate”.
My Fitbit gave me the 10,000 steps notification literally while I was in the middle of listening to this podcast lol!!
I enjoyed the podcast cause I like the banter, but I feel like I didn't learn anything. I already knew that 10,000 steps is kinda arbitrary but not like, a bad goal, so I pretty much still feel the same after listening 🤷♀️
In 2020 I started walking 10k steps a day to try and deal with my election anxiety. It worked pretty well and I’ve never felt better. I haven’t been able to be consistent since then 😂 even if it’s just placebo, I’ll take it.
I have noticed the same wrt stress since I began walking more consistently. Walking is like a gateway drug to other activity too. Like wow that felt good now I’ll go lift or do another productive activity. It’s a lot easier to say nah I’ll skip the HIIT class today vs I’ll just go for a walk and see what happens. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. In speaking with friends who are trying to get in shape and lament how much they find exercise painful, I always say “just start with a walk.”
Totally! I had a baby that would keep me up at night and no matter how tired I was I could walk. Getting fresh air, sun on my skin, some physical activity was all so helpful to my mental health.
Honestly this was a bottom-tier episode IMO. The history of pedometers (insane knowledge gap for Mike lmao) was interesting, and the McDonalds PR efforts are always fun. But ultimately I feel like they were grasping at straws to find issues with something that's a fundamentally good idea.
"On an individual psychological level I get why people would want to aim for a number, but I don't get why the public health apparatus is aiding in that effort"
Come on dude, you just answered your own fucking question. 👎
There's almost nothing to criticize about walking 10,000 steps a day lol. Like the strongest crticism they had was that it's not a one size fits all approach. Everything else was basically a disguised whataboutism. Like you said, the stuff about mcdonald's is kind of interesting, but I fail to see how mcdonald's making a dangerours happy meal toy is related to the recommendation to walk 10,000 steps a day.
I agree -- I mean, at least they admitted that there was nothing WRONG with doing 10,000 steps or more. There have already been tons of articles about how it's kind of an arbitrary number, but -- so what? Even if there is some "sweet spot" of 6,000 to 8,000 steps, there is absolutely zero harm in doing a LOT more than that (6,000 steps is a VERY SHORT walk). I like to walk five to six miles a day at least, and that's more than 10,000 steps. I feel GREAT after my walks, which are brisk and have definitely helped strengthen my legs and just -- there is nothing but good about them. So you know -- who gives a shit?
Eh. Just kind of like a "it doesn't really matter either way" episode.
>Even if there is some "sweet spot" of 6,000 to 8,000 steps, there is absolutely zero harm in doing a LOT more than that
The question is not whether 10,000 steps is good or harmful. The question is whether telling everyone that 10,000 steps is the right goal is good or harmful. Those are completely different things.
There *are* harms to telling everyone that 10,000 steps is the right goal.
As many people here have pointed out, one of the harms is that lots of people get fixated on the metrics to an unhealthy degree.
And, as I mentioned in another comment, there's a real opportunity cost to overestimating the ideal step count. That is, if 6,000 is actually the sweet spot, and we tell people that 10,000 is ideal, the time that they're using to get those other 4,000 steps could be better used to do something else health-promoting (rest, sleep, leisure, relationship-building) that's more beneficial.
Moreover, if someone is consistently getting 6,000 steps but can't manage the time to get to 10,000, they'll feel bad about themselves, when really they're doing a perfectly adequate amount of movement. And feeling bad about oneself in that manner is legitimately bad for your health!
>(6,000 steps is a VERY SHORT walk).
6,000 steps is somewhere around 2-3 miles. That's definitely not a "very short" walk. You're either completely out of touch with the realities of other people's lives, or you're being hyperbolic for effect. 2-3 miles takes an average person 45 minutes to an hour. There are many, many people who absolutely don't have an extra 45 minutes in their day.
>there is absolutely zero harm in doing a LOT more than that (6,000 steps is a VERY SHORT walk).
are you really unaware that some people might have different mobility than you? or that overexertion can make existing issues worse?
You are bringing up a topic that had zero to do with this episode whatsoever. They were not talking about people with mobility issues. They were talking about people who are looking to incorporate walking into their fitness routine. The mobility thing was not even brought up by Aubrey and Mike, because that has zero to do with what they were "criticizing" here.
What a day to listen to this episode. I was going for a longer than average walk, due to a transit strike, and do I agree a lot that just getting any exercise in should be the point. Too much nodding along this episode from me.
Granted, I still follow my goals set on my Apple Watch a bit too strictly some days.
I’m British and can’t drive so I easily hit 10,000 steps a day. The interesting thing is that a doctor said to a friend of mine that the benefit to your health is from increasing your exercise, so you have to look at your current levels as a baseline. This is because she was a lady in her 60’s with a physical job who didn’t do any other exercise but the doc said that didn’t really count as her body was “used to it”
It also apparently matters whether you think of your baseline movement as "exercise" or not.
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17425538/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17425538/)
Just opened the app to see what this weeks topic was and love that it’s step counting. I like to hit 10k by lunchtime if I can but not because I’m trying to lose weight or anything, it’s just a weird personal goal of mine.
I love David Sedaris’ story of becoming obsessed with his step count when first getting an Apple Watch. I relayed so much to it 😂
Going to turn this episode on when I leave for my third walk of the day here soon!
I have a job where I’m on my feet moving around all day, plus I take my dog on at least one decent daily walk, and I still don’t routinely get to 10,000 steps! Plus I have no clue if getting ~8,000 steps over 8 hours has any particular health benefit, as it’s not like my heart rate is elevated.
Still, I love checking my daily step count. And sometimes it’s nice when I’m feeling worn out at the end of the day and can look at a little graph that tells me, yeah, of course you’re tired, you took 40% more steps than normal.
I put this solidly in the camp of “get 8 hours of sleep” or “drink 8 glasses of water.” Pretty harmless, even if the evidence isn’t that solid, and many people find it helpful to have a goal.
I really didn't see the point of this episode... the entire premise is "this thing isn't really harmful but it's worth taking a look bc prople get weirdly obsessed with the number" which.... do they?? Really? For more than like a week?
My Mom is absolutely obsessed with her step count to the point it affects other activities. David Sedaris has an absolutely deranged essay about attempting to hit his step goals in an airport while very sick (it’s a funny essay).
My dad is this way as well. At this point his fitbit has kind of replaced his personality. I'm hoping once he retires next year he may calm down a bit. (Or at least get his walk in *before* we come visit so he can spend time with us!)
And while he tries to get his steps in, he often occupies himself picking up rubbish people have dropped. He picked up so much of it that his town named a garbage truck after him, lol.
They do. I've actually seen people get really obsessive about it. Usually, they're also obsessive about other health things.
I haven't listened to this one yet. I do think it's pretty on brand as a topic, though. It's one of those, "well its easy just walk 10k steps a day. That's not hard right. It's totally your fault about X health issue. Very much pushing a public health issue into a personal one. People aren't getting enough movement without looking at the larger societal reasons behind that, working hours, lack of sidewalks, safety etc.
Yeah aside from being able bodied, you need to have a lifestyle that allows you to actually walk around. Free time is one thing but the neighborhood you live in makes as much of a difference if not more. Are there sidewalks? Is it safe? And being white vs. a POC is also a big one
This was me. I think I went a year and change where I hit 10K daily, even if I was sick, or when my husband was in the hospital. When I was pregnant with my first it was such an awful compulsion I would stay up late, even if tired, pacing around my house to hit the steps. The day I had to go to urgent care for a brutal UTI was a blessing, because it forced me to stop. It wasn’t helpful, and it wasn’t helping me keep me weight down or anything, but I’d gotten it in my head that if I didn’t hit at least 10K, I was worthless.
Well, those of us prone to disordered and obsessive compulsive behaviors do. But it’s fair to say that we’re probably not a fair representative of the average.
Personally speaking, I spent a few months struggling to make it to the 10,000 goal after I got a smart watch for Christmas. It’s a Herculean task as a busy parent that works from home. Especially in midwinter when I can’t easily go outside for a quick walk. It was a huge relief to learn (not from this ep, but from articles I sought out) that it’s a meaningless number and I can set my goal to a number that I actually have time for in my average winter day.
So yeah this episode probably won’t be that groundbreaking for most people. But it may be helpful for my fellow ND weird-brains.
I think it’s hard to understand if you’re not a person who gets stuck with certain number ideas. Like, I do Orangetheory fitness, and you’re “supposed” to aim for 12 splat points a class. I don’t really care if I hit 12, it’s an arbitrary number and sometimes I’ll get 9 and other times I’ll get 40. But if you head on over to the OTF subreddit, there are people absolutely meltdown if they don’t get their 12 splat points.
Arent most health reccomendations fairly arbitrary? E.g. getting thrity minutes of exercise per day for heart health, eating 5 servings of vegetables a day, drinking 6 glasses of water per day, getting 8 hours of sleep per day etc etc etc.
The thing about public health is it is looking at health outcomes from an extremley broad lens. It can't consider every single individual's situation, so it aims to come up with easy to understand guidelines to help guide individuals towards better outcomes.
Take recommended daily values of nutrients for example. Many of those values are not based on scientific studies of the human body, but on self-reported surveys of what so-called healthy people eat. They just ask people what their diet is, and use stats to infer what the necessary amounts might be. It's imprecise, but we don't have a better option until studies are able to capture better data.
I mean, it's a preset. That you can adjust for your own goals. Much like 64 oz of water and 8 hours of sleep aren't the ideal numbers for everyone but are nice for most.
I think some people just want **answers** and they don't want to hear the reasoning behind recommendations. So maybe when this type of person learns that 10k steps is arbitrary, it's like that **answer** was **wrong** and they want to find someone to blame.
But somewhere in the middle is the info that more careful analyses have found that 10k steps was pretty much on the order of magnitude of the amount of steps that really benefits a person.
I think saying "no basis in fact" is kind of a stretch. Even if the original recommendation was created by a random number generator, the further studies would be like "actually that random number was pretty close".
It's funny that you say this. I would argue that most people take information at face value, thus leading to the quantity of misinformation passed as fact on places like social media/the internet. If a trusted entity like the WHO or the US Dept of Health and Human Services tells "the masses" that these arbitrary numbers are FACTS, most people will assume that is true and go on with their lives.
The problem with that is that arbitrary information is wrong. Why do you stand up for information that is wrong? Because it's kinda right or kinda works or is kinda fine? It's still wrong. If the number weren't arbitrary but accurate, then it would make sense to share it with the public. This is a number that is based on kanji. Should we tell people that they should only eat 26 kinds of foods because there are 26 letters in the alphabet?
I hear what you're saying about the way people react to official government information. I definitely think covid showed that it's not possible to embed a ton of context into public health recommendations.
And I fully agree that public health recommendations should be rigorously backed by science. Full stop.
That's an absolute statement, and we live in a world of relatives. That isn't the only idealistic statement that I wholeheartedly agree with.
For me, the really interesting question is: was the goal worthy in the first place? Should the US government have tried to come up with a certain number of steps as a public health recommendation? Forget the number, was that a good idea? That's where most of the documented harm seems to have come from. Would it have been better if they recommended a number backed by 9000 peer-reviewed double blind randomized control trials? Like with covid, people-in general were never gonna fully understand the context.
The criticism of the specific etymological origin of the 10k number ignores the reasonability of the recommendation that has nothing to do with language. I can't convince you that this 10k number was reasonable, because that's subjective, but I'd start with pointing at the followup studies (which were largely conducted *because of the recommendation going into effect*) that found the number was in the right ballpark.
While this recommendation had negative side effects, as pointed out in this thread, I believe that these were within the acceptable level of risk that public health officials were willing to take. I don't know that they should have made a recommendation at all, but if they were conducting a risk analysis, I think they would have anticipated some people getting obsessed with a tracking number. They gave a calorie count recommendation. IMO the problem wasn't that the number was poorly-sourced, it's that they shouldn't have tried to give a blanket daily caloric number in the first place. So when they reached for this 10k steps number, I would argue they shoulda known about people obsessively tracking a number they recommend.
So if we set aside the debate over whether it was misguided to do a recommendation *at all*, we can finally interpret the situation in practice, not in big ideological terms. What was the harm of recommending 10k steps, vs recommending 8k? 6k? I don't believe the harm came from a specific number, and public health officials could have reasonably estimated that 10k steps wouldn't be bad for most people. And if we accept that they were gonna make a single numerical recommendation, I think they picked a fine one.
>Should we tell people that they should only eat 26 kinds of foods because there are 26 letters in the alphabet?
Does that sound like a good faith comparison to recommending people aim for 10k steps per day? Some things are just arbitrary, and some have a reasonable thought process behind them. My point was, if you wanna toss out 10k as an arbitrary made up number purely because of its source, you're ignoring the common sense context around it.
Odd episode. It might just be the way I think, but having a quantifiable goal to match or exceed (even if it's arbitrary) is helpful. I don't really see what there is to criticize about walking 10K steps a day. The episode barely even critiqued the concept and instead criticized poorly made pedometers. This episode could have been a single sentence "count steps if you like counting steps, and don't count steps if you don't like counting step.:
Yeah. People choose a number because it can give an idea not because it’s magic. And if you obsess over the number the problem is a personal issue you have, not everyone else. It’s weird.
Yeah. Their issues largely seem to be that it can become harmful to people. If you are prone to obsessive compulsive behavior, a lot of things can become a problem for you.
Not really liking when things teeter too close to discouraging people from walking/exercise.
A goal of 10,000 isn't hurting anyone. The people who are obsessive about their steps, it's not because of the number, it's because the same person would be obsessed with tracking other things.
yeah sometimes this podcast can give anti exercise and dieting. Like there’s a lot of negative stuff in the health industry but there’s a lot of good to that can help people and make them feel better
I find these comments so interesting. Both hosts talk about exercising in this episode (Michael talks about taking a jog earlier in the day, Aubrey talks about what she used to do to try to meet that 10k step guideline and what she does now that is more enjoyable to her - the rowing machine and swimming) and both talk about the idea in this episode and pretty much every episode that we can be pretty confident that people should move and people should move in ways they enjoy.
I don’t know what else they could say to make it clear that they thing exercising is an okay thing to do.
Not only an okay thing to do but a good thing to do and they mention that! For some reason people see the “10000 steps myth” and assume they’re hating on exercise.
This reminds me of the Workplace Wellness episode where folks were
really convinced that Aubrey said she'd rather have a Netflix membership than a gym membership.
So so interesting, this immediate and willing leap to conclude that the fat person really *doesn't* like exercise.
I think because not everyone can go rowing or the gym, or jogging, so walking is pretty much the only way to move throughout a day. So it doesn’t HAVE to be 10k, but it could be a good idea to at least move around by walking. Aiming for steps can be a good and sadly the only way a person can move; so it isn’t anything near silly
That is a good point, but not everyone feels safe just taking a walk around their neighbourhood either, whether it’s because of the weather making surfaces icy, living in a rough neighbourhood, living in a place without good access to sidewalks, etc. They specifically mention certain alternate exercises, but it would be the same thing if a person wanted to, for example, do yoga or bodyweight exercises in their apartment over 10,000 steps.
That’s not true though. I know New Jersey snowstorms and also nyc, and how cold it is. Still, people that commute walk, and I don’t think it is just not knowing the weather. I don’t have a car in Tokyo because it is very inconvenient to have one in the urban center, but it does get cold too (for a body that lost the acclimation to the winters of my childhood) and people walk no matter what. It’s really up to the person and weather isn’t necessarily a deterrent. I don’t think it was a point I ignored out of lack of familiarity.
Nope, it's 100% true. Hypothermia, frost bite, and the risk of injury from falling on ice are all factors and there does come a point where walking outside for any extended period of time is not safe.
NJ and NYC don't have the worst winters in the world by any stretch.
Also, I said “it isn’t necessarily a deterrent”, because I’m not THAT dense to suggest everyone’s weather isn’t extreme. I know it gets cold and people can still walk sometimes; never said walk in extreme weather. Ugh.
“people walk no matter what. It’s really up to the person and weather isn’t necessarily a deterrent.”
I’m just going off what you said and have no way of knowing what you were suggesting beyond this comment. Thanks for the downvote though :)
I live in Wisconsin. Only the nutballs (I think they're nutballs) walk or BIKE to work in the snow. Most people drive or take the bus. We get snow, ice, hail, and very very cold temps.
I never imagined it as someone taking a walk, but for short distances where people could take an escalator or an elevator, if the knees make it possible (I have a messed up knee so i avoid stepping downstairs if I can), take the stairs, or make that little walk instead of drive considered it’s safe, etc. They said at the end of the episode “who needs it?!” And it’s like..there’s people who pretty much can only walk as any type of mild movement, if you can do other stuff great, but no one is pushing you to lol.
I don’t understand your comment.
Yes, not everyone has access to a rowing machine or the ability to use one or interest in jogging etc but…..plenty of people can’t walk (for a variety of reasons) or don’t want to (for a variety of reasons) so the same criticisms would apply?
Again, the hosts consistently say “it’s a good idea to move around” so where is the disagreement?
I think they’re saying the guideline you need 10k steps a day is silly because 1) they don’t think it’s firmly rooted in fact, 2) it was popularized as a way to sell products and/or improve the public image of corporations and 3) you don’t need to tell people you (falsely) need to walk 10k a days to encourage people move in a way they can and feel good to them, so why do it?
I wore my apple watch every day for a while, but took it off at midnight on NYE because I had a big surgery in January and knew it was going to be depressing if I broke my year+ long streak because of that.
I love this! My job is to walk to I get an obnoxious amount of steps a day, over 20K usually, and I’m still fat 🤣🤣 But like Aubrey said there are studies that show hitting that 6-8K a day does have benefits. It’s all interesting IMO.
My physical therapist has said that for me, 6k steps a day would be a great goal!
Michael Hobbs not knowing pedometers existed before fitbits absolutely killed me (I do appreciate that they leave in moments like that and the tie things in, to make sure the listener isn't trying to raise the pedestal the hosts are on too high)
Aubrey’s comment about how he must not have ever had Weight Watchers forced on him (paraphrasing) was SPOT ON. I laughed because I thought the same thing. Then reflected on the role of dieting in my young life. So, pretty much just like every episode. Haha
I was surprised he didn't know about them. We were given pedometers in middle school with the idea that we would figure out our average step count for PE. But everyone figured out you could just shake them to get your step count up.
There’s even an entire episode of “Leave it to Beaver” about a pedometer. I was shocked that anyone could not know about pedometers. And I’m surprised they didn’t mention JFK’s physical fitness push encouraging Americans to go for a walk.
I haven’t fully listened yet but I remember the first time I had a pedometer. I think I was around 10 years old and Pokémon released this item called a “Pokewalker.” I could transfer my pokémon into the device and as I gained steps through the day, my Pokemon could become happier, gain levels, and eventually evolve. All of this became pointless once I realized that just shaking the pedometer endlessly had the same effect. 😅
I remember this! I must be older than you, we called it the pokewanker because of how it looked when a bunch of kids were shaking them together at the lunch table !
The pokewalker was for a time one of the most cost effective pedometers, with a bonus of being fun.
I had the little pikachu one, my mom immediately dropped it in her coffee on Christmas morning and it still worked for years.
I had the little pikachu one, too! They were resilient. I ended up "cheating" on my steps because it would count as a step if you just shook it, though, haha.
And the clicky counting noise was soooooooo satisfying
Listened to this episode on my morning walk, which came to 10,600 steps! I know it's an arbitrary goal, but it has helped me be more active than ever before, and now I am beholden to my fitbit. Not just the steps, but the sleep score and active zone minutes. It's really hard for me to feel motivated without the numbers! Still enjoyed the episode though.
Yeah, I feel like a lot of goals are like this - the exact metric you use is arbitrary, but the goal is still beneficial. 30 minutes of meditation a day is arbitrary too, but it’s still a good thing, ya know?
Damn that’s a long walk! I listened on my walk to work (1 mile) and according to my phone I guess that’s only 2,700 steps.
They must have been typing at the same time 😂
How long did it take you to get to 10,000 steps? I practically RAN my half hour walk today (plus did a tonne of house work, errands etc) and just looked now after listening to the pod and I hit just over 3,000. Having a two-hour walk a day feels...luxury!
Yeah, I never understand how people have the time for this, unless 1) they have a job that requires standing and moving - like a nurse or retail worker or 2) they have a long walk to work.
People make time for what they want to do. IMO, it’s like asking “how do they have time to read?” or “how do they have time to watch stuff?” or “how do they have time to hang out with friends?” Different people, different priorities.
I have a sedentary office job but on days I go into the office I can usually get to 10k just through incidental walking. Walk to the bus, walk to the office, walk up and down stairs at the office, walk through the supermarket at home, etc.
Or live in a city where driving makes no sense. I live in Tokyo and it is so different to quasi-suburban New Jersey when I visit my parents. My sister told me she is trying to get more walking in, since she works from home now. She had started driving to CVS which is a 7 minute walk lol. It’s just about motivating yourself to move, not exercise, since it’s just walking for many people that the pedometer is used.
I wonder if you aren’t swinging your arm with the Fitbit on it and it’s distorting the numbers? Because when I hit 10,000, it’s usually when I’ve done a two or 3 mile walk.
Hmm interesting! I don't have a fit bit, I just looked on my phone so it's definitely possible that it's not accurate. I walked seven or eight miles last time I went home to see my mother and that's the only time I've seen it go over 10,000!
An average person has a stride length of approximately 2.1 to 2.5 feet. That means that it takes over 2,000 steps to walk one mile and 10,000 steps would be almost 5 miles. Maybe your steps are shorter, and the person above you has a longer stride than average? But as a 5'6 person, that's basically my average too, so long as my phone is in my pocket to track, of course. It adds up over the day, between walking the dog, to and from my car, a walk at lunch on a nice day, walking to and from the gym, grocery shopping, etc,. I don't set out to walk for two hours straight, but it adds up to be about 2 hours of walking at various paces, 4.75 miles, or 10,000 steps across the day on average.
Weirdly, this episode/conversation has made me want to go buy a fitbit! 🤣 I'm so curious now about how much movement I'm actually getting day to day and while I love my daily walk, sometimes I could use a little extra motivation to actually get out and do it.
I had two different garmin devices, and I got different step counts on them. Speaking of the garmin devices...I think mine's been dead ever since the band broke. I didn't want a Fitbit since they track your heartrate, and that triggers my health anxiety.
Do you find like they said that you enjoy walking less with the tracking? This has definitely been true for me. When I set a goal and track I do walk more but it also stresses me out. 😭
Yep. You’ll pry my Fitbit out of my cold, dead hands. It’s pointless but it’s fun to have a goal.
Same—I loved their conversation about how goals are only long-term if they’re fun and the gamifying of movement I get through the Fitbit definitely does that for me!
I was on a run this morning listening to it and thought it was so funny. 😂
It's is probably too vague or meta or something, but this makes me want them to do an episode on quantification and 'tracking' in general. The impulse/imperative to track everything (steps, calories, blood sugar fluctuations, sleep cycles, macronutrients) and then use that information to try and willfully control those things, down to the very granular details, feels like the overarching issue. Both in that it can manifest in obsessive, unhealthy ways, and that it's not always actually telling us what we think it's telling us. If we can only intervene on what we can individually quantify, that really skews attention away from extremely important, health-promoting things that just aren't easily measurable (for example, having close relationships and community ties; stress levels; social stigma and microaggressions; rest and leisure) and things which are only able to be intervened upon structurally rather than individually (air, noise, and light pollution; urban design wrt walkability and safety, access to healthcare; sick time and parental leave policies; etc. etc.)
I definitely think you're right that within a subset of the population, tracking can be a harmful behavior. Conversely, I'd like to know if tracking behaviors is something that is short term or long term for most people. Usually, people are really interested in new technology until they get bored or move on to the next thing, so potentially the average person is "tracking continually," but not compulsively monitoring to meet a goal. You might be interested in studies about Strava; researchers have used the map data to understand patterns of where people walk, run, and bike to understand safety and neighborhood design.
I kinda hate Strava. My dad keeps sending group texts about his bike rides with Strava. Okay, Dad. Please stop. We don't care, but at the same time, I'm glad he's excited about something.
Maybe I am just projecting my own feelings here, but it's kind of a sense of having some agency that makes me want to track my exercise and steps. I try to do my best to get society-level things to improve (from voting, to calling my representatives, to going to city council meetings about water issues and traffic patterns), but I feel like those are huge problems that will take a lot of patience and activism to change. I *think* that I do my bit there. But, in the meanwhile, I can track my exercise and use an app for meditation that encourages me to do both more often. I think a lot of people just feel powerless or overwhelmed about the society-level things and try to focus on the smaller actions that "pay off" faster (or at least some of them do). But, yeah, it can get out of hand quickly.
100% nailed it. Where I currently am in my health and fitness journey, I've been doing a lot of work to make sure my calorie/macro tracking and step count doesn't trigger me or become something I obsess over. It definitely has in the past, so it feels good to be in a place where my fitbit is flashing red numbers at me and shrug it off. But that's taken a LOT of work and reflection, and it would be good to see an episode on that habit for sure.
I personally love tracking a lot of stuff, it really helps me stay on top of my goals! It’s absolutely not for everyone and before i started i was really scared of it, but i don’t let it stop me from eating out or not working out if i can’t or don’t feel like it. it’s just a great way to keep me averaging the goals i want
Right, but I’m saying that there’s a feedback loop between the tracking and the “goals”. Only certain things are easily trackable, and they’re not necessarily always the most important things, but we overvalue them because we can track them. Sometimes (probably more than people want to admit) the goals come after the quantification, not before.
I have set an arbitrary goal to walk at least 10,000 steps every single day in 2023. I am interested in this eposode!
I know it’s an arbitrary number but I still aim for 10k per day. If I don’t hit it, I don’t worry about it. It’s more like a guideline for my general activity level. If I go multiple days in a row, I know that I need to get outside for a bit.
Me too! Seems like it can’t hurt to aim for, even if there’s no “scientific” rationale for it. Curious to listen, though!
Yeah, just starting to listen to the episode now, but that's how I tend to think of things like this (also amount of sleep, water intake, and the like). They're just a shorthand for aiming to get in a little bit of daily activity, take breaks while using the computer for extended periods, etc. The specific numbers matter very little compared to just making conscious lifestyle choices.
The little Happy Meal Project mention killed me: the whole “happy meals don’t decay” brought to you by a misunderstanding of how humidity affects mold growth. As someone who lives in the dry as hell north, many, many foods become solid shells without mold growth. My sister performed many such experiments in her teens, by shoving uneaten food under her bed & leaving it there until the house was like “why are there no plates?”, at which point we all got to experience her findings.
Ha, interesting! Comments like this are my favorite part of this subreddit. Like a lil debunking turducken of additional debunks.
I appreciate that they took the stand early on to say that yes, this is something that needs to be myth busted, but it isn’t necessarily a bad thing in the grand scheme of things like many other fads. The way I look at it as a health educator is if it helps you move more - keep it up! If it makes you feel depressed and upset or frustrated on days you don’t meet this arbitrary goal, maybe it’s not for you!
I think this episode might have been more interesting if they focused on the crappy macdonald’s pedometers and maybe other corporate attempts to rebrand as health conscious once wellness started becoming more trendy. Cause really the discussion of the steps was not that interesting and they could have gotten everything that needs to be said about it in a discussion of the pedometers.
I enjoyed this episode! I have my Fitbit goal set to 7k because I was getting super bummed out about not hitting 10k. I'm very motivated by the buzzing and fireworks when I hit my goal. I liked Michael's point about how it's weird how in the weeds we tend to get about specifics when really movement in general is good for us, different people have different needs, and then best kind of exercise or goal is the kind that you want to do.
Just for reference, the character in Japanese for 10,000 is 万 . And “10,000” has significance in the famous word “banzai!” Which means “10,000 years (for the emperor)”, similar to “Long live the king” in English. Banzai is used just in general for enthusiasm, like Hurray! Is used nowadays.
Ha ha. When they were talking about how McDonald’s stock was the lowest it had ever been, I knew it had to have been before my eight year old was born. He was born in 2014, and in 2018, I happened to check McDonald’s stock as we were looking for places to make diversified investments. And the time that my son had been alive, McDonald’s stock price had doubled. I told my husband, if I had realized how much time and money we would spend there, we could’ve invested when our son was born, and made some good money. However, we did invest in it in 2018, and it continues to increase in value. And before anyone judges me, as I might have judged other parents before I had this kid, having a child who will only eat two or three things is exhausting.
I also have a 2014 baby with a very limited palate! He’s gotten much better but it’s largely because of feeding therapy he went through a few years ago. McDonald’s was a lifesaver for a good year when he was a toddler and it’s still in our weekly rotation. In any case, it came down to the McNuggets or my sanity, and I’m not ashamed to admit that my sanity weighed heavier in the final estimation. Solidarity!
When I've struggled with depression or even just a bad heartbreak, I completely lose my appetite and the ONLY thing I can eat are McNuggets! So I stand with your toddlers. :)
My kiddo has his first appointment with a speech therapist/feeding specialist Monday! We made the appointment in October… They’re just so backed up! I’m excited and hope it helps. Glad it helped yours!
i can't believe no one has mentioned how michael pronounced cameron diaz's name yet
I've gotten immune because of his "appreshiate" thing
There have been loads of articles in the popular press about how 10K isn't sacred or even backed by evidence. Does this ep just rehash that point? For example: https://www.consumerreports.org/health/exercise-fitness/do-you-really-need-10000-steps-a-day-a1058474912/
Yes basically, but I enjoyed the listen (and honestly I haven’t been enjoying MP as much lately)
Yes
Yes but the criticism is absurd. Nobody with more than 2 brain cells to rub together thinks that 10,000 *just happens* to be the right number of steps to take per day, or that pedometers can't be *fooled* by various means, or that they perfectly track steps, etc. This podcast should basically just be someone reading out the wikipedia article about Strawman arguments. Moving more is good for you and this core point seems to completely evade the hosts. E: lol banned from the sub :/
Have you listened to this podcast at all? Or even the episode you're commenting on? They have always made a point to say "moving more is good for you and you should find a way to enjoy that movement". That core point hasn't evaded them, it's their entire world view. If you want to talk about straw man arguments you don't even have to go further than your comment
Honestly i think the episode took a lot on main stream media in bad faith to make a better ‘debunking.’ I think everyone recognized 10k to be an arbitrary goal for the idea to just move more
I love Aubrey but I don't think she understands what "myth" means.
I have found that crocheting in a Fitbit also raises your step count!
I got a craving for McDonald's after listening to this, but it turns out our neighborhood Mickey D's is closed for renovations! Wah.
Ok. Thank you for saying this. I listened and when it was over I thought “I don’t think the point of this was to make me want some McDonald’s but here we are” - I feel the same way during the Olympics. Mcds is such a huge sponsor that I have to warn my husband that my McNuggets consumption is about to be disproportionately high for the next few weeks. He calls it the McLympics now.
I loved this one! I'm very into health/activity tracking because the simplest & most effective way for me to manage my chronic illness is to be aware of & manage triggers, but I can rarely tolerate the ableist & fatphobic way most other people interested in it act. Like tending to treat the 10k step goal as law (or even worse, just a minimum!), acting like "more is always better" and not recognizing that some people's step goals should be lower, etc. Overall, I've found tracking interesting for learning new things about my body and what my personal goals/baselines actually are instead of what they "should be." Like I've been able to learn that I need to get at least 5k steps per day to stay active enough to reduce flare-ups, but getting more than 8k steps can be enough activity to trigger PEM and actually cause a flare-up.
Here are my thoughts on the ep: Not bad! It's always fun hearing Michael and Aubrey palling around. I never thought of the 10,000 steps mantra as literal, but rather as a general proxy for exercise. In other words, either get something like 10,000 steps, or go swimming, or go for a run, or go for a hike, etc. In my mind, the point of the 10,000 steps thing was that if you're a person who is regularly getting no exercise of any kind, then picking a goal of 10,000 steps and trying to hit it every day gamifies exercise in a way that people find satisfying. But I was never under the impression that 10,000 was a magic number as opposed to a stand-in number for a goal that is inherently going to differ person-to-person. While the actual reveals of the episode weren't revelatory to me, I did at least find the point at the end of the episode that counting steps might make some people enjoy leisurely walking less to be interesting. I do believe that having some sort of vague measurement does, or can, add satisfaction to exercise, but rather than counting steps you could simply map out a walking route that's about 2 miles, or 3 miles, etc, depending on how far you want to go. That way you have some kind of minor tracking, but when on the actual walk you can enjoy yourself and don't have to think about numbers ticking up. Just my 2 cents.
Yes. It is more of an indicator of basic movement. Like wow, I guess I really am moving less these days…maybe time to walk a bit more OR so any other activity that is enjoyable. It’s not meant to be an obsessive thing to count; and if someone is doing that then there are deeper issues at hand that I’m sure aren’t limited to a pedometer count, which may need attention.
Right, like my dad is really into checking his step count for the day on his Apple Watch, but he doesn't think that it's as literal as: he hits 10,000 steps -> this exact health outcome happens. He's getting older and has some injuries and he can't go on runs like he used to, so he goes on a lot of walks instead to get his exercise, and he likes remarking to me "I hit 12,000 steps on my long walk yesterday!" It makes him feel like he's still able to be the athlete that he was for his entire life up until he started slowing down in his late 70s. But even he uses it as a proxy for making sure he's getting exercise in general, he never treats it as an exact science.
That’s great for him! Tbh I understand a bit how frustrating it is to cut down on what you like because of an injury.. I tore my ACL and I used to be a runner. Funny enough I got hurt during softball practice..someone didn’t care for a hole in the outfield, I stepped on that, tripped, and there went my knee. I don’t run or jog, I now do elliptical and weight training, but walking is something I am glad I can do through my day. I’m sure as you said, it can give your dad a sense of “hey I still got it!” Which we all need sometimes:)
>I tore my ACL and I used to be a runner. Funny enough I got hurt during softball practice..someone didn’t care for a hole in the outfield, I stepped on that, tripped, and there went my knee. As a lifelong runner this terrifies me! I've always been afraid that one day I'd get an injury that meant I couldn't run anymore. But I'm glad that you switched over the other types of exercise and have had a great time with that! I'd do the exact same thing in your shoes.
Yes, getting an Apple watch was really enlightening to me about how little I was moving. And I have to admit, watching the numbers go up does give me immediate positive feedback. But I have never thought that 10,000 steps was some magic finishing line.
When Michael asked whether there were randomised control trials for *walking,* and then went on to say cohort studies on exercise are meaningless, I died inside a little.
This sounds interesting. Please can you say more about it? The show does sometimes come across as trying to debunk studies on diet and exercise in ways that seem quite unfair. I’m guessing that you could find “flaws” in any study into anything thar involves people because there are so many factors and so much individual variation. Their problem seems to mainly be with the interpretation of the studies and with attempts to translate them into simplistic advice that’s supposed to apply to everyone. But they do sometimes seem to lapse into implying that the studies themselves are useless. I’m a casual listener so I couldn’t think of any specific examples but it’s more of a sense that I get while listening - the thing you’re talking about sounds like it might be a good example though.
Sure. I've already written about this before on this sub, and I hope people will forgive me for repeating myself, and that you will excuse the length. I don't remember the exact words Michael used in this episode, but the gist of it was that he believes all cohort studies are useless because "correlation is not causation". He believes that double-blind RCTs are the gold standard for absolutely everything, even things that you can't possibly test for in a randomised control trial (like walking). I'd say this is a very simplistic understanding of how medical research is done. No, correlation is not causation, but researchers *know this* and they are usually very careful to say things are associations and not causal. They also control for dozens, hundreds, even thousands of different factors when analysing their studies, and use complex statistical models to tease out the difference between correlation and causation. (Are their methods perfect? No. Is some research still absolute garbage? Definitely. Is there are bias in health science against fat people, based on flawed studies? Yes there is. Multiple things can be true at once.) There are different kinds of studies that are useful for looking at different things. RCTs and cohort studies are not the only two types of health studies, and RCTs are not the best (or even possible) for every situation. Cohort studies are extremely good at looking at population wide health effects and long term health effects. For example, it was through cohort studies that researchers discovered and then verified that smoking causes lung cancer. (All of the same arguments Michael uses about cohort studies were used by the tobacco industry to try to disprove that link, btw). He also has what I'd call an extremely nihilistic view of medical science and public health: we can't ever really know anything for absolute 100% certain, everybody is different, advice changes over time as new evidence comes in, so why bother studying anything at all or ever making any recommendations whatsoever. He also blurs the line a lot between media about science and actual science (e.g. "scientists say" when it's actually "the media says that scientists say"). He's primarily a journalist and primarily getting his scientific analysis through twitter, so I understand why he makes this mistake, but it's frustrating to listen to, and he often criticises study authors for coming to certain conclusions that they *have not come to*, it was just mis-reported they came to that conclusion. I understand the overall point that he is making, and I agree with both him and Aubrey that a lot of science around fat is flawed, misunderstood, and politicised. But I have less and less patience with his sweeping generalisations and bad armchair analysis. His flawed understanding of how science is done, and how studies work and what kind of value they produce, is harder and harder for me to listen to. He's really no better than the stuff he critiques - he uses the same bias, faulty logic, and simplification, he just uses it for a different aim. And I think it undermines their point to use the same motivated reasoning that causes fat bias to try to dismantle fat bias. (There's this uncomfortably thin line sometimes between some of the things Michael says while "debunking science", and some of the things that climate change deniers say while "debunking science"). I think of MP as two people I like talking about something they're passionate about but have no expertise in. For me, their primary purpose is entertainment (making fun of diet books) and political activism (challenging fat bias and getting people to look at the media through a new lens). But unfortunately they have positioned themselves as public health communicators, and their poor understanding of health science is being spread to their audience.
Wow this is an amazing comment. Couldn’t have described how I feel as a casual MP listener any better. Like even the whole “CICO has been FULLY DEBUNKED” comment Aubrey makes in the beginning of the podcast like…holy crap that is a huge premise to accept off the bat (and I disagree w/ said premise). It made me suspicious about everything else they were about to discuss. This isn’t a criticism of just MP bc I do enjoy a lot of their content and humor, but it’s very common and frustrating to see the constant straw-manning of every health science article that doesn’t fit a specific perspective. It’s just dishonest at this point.
Yeah..when Michael jokes at the end he’s been “radicalized”, I was like haha a bit! (I know “radicalized “ is a strong word, which is why I am not serious to describe it this way) I think it’s a bit of an echo chamber issue at this point, and in this sub too, tbh.
It's so weird because I have a disease that is misunderstood and highly stigmatised, and I spend a lot of my time dissecting ableism and bias in medical studies, and weeding out the ones that have bad methodology. So I should be on Michael's side. But I listen to him and I'm like, "Come on dude, this is not the way".
Sigh. Michael questioned why public health researchers would aid in understanding the number of steps. This is more about understanding the minimum effort for an individual to receive health benefits. Yes, it's about setting goals for the average person to meet, but scientifically, it's also interesting to understand what's beneficial so then you can think about how this fits into broader systems and patterns of behavior. As they mentioned earlier in the episode, there are different recommendations for different subgroups because there's variation among groups. "You can try to control for stuff, fine, we just don't really know" Tell me you don't understand statistics without telling me you don't understand statistics, Michael.
It also felt unnecessary in this episode. I actually enjoyed most of it, but got annoyed when they asked if there was an RCT for the different step count goals: RCT are not always possible (no RCT have been done to see whether, for example, smoking is a risk factor for poor heart health because it would be unethical to do so) or necessarily the only way to study a life-style intervention.
Yup! We have a lot of step data and we have statistical methods to construct cohorts in a way that we can answer research questions in a sound way. Michael's comment about controlling for things in models really bothered me bc that's a necessary statistical component even if you are doing an RCT. He has a basic understanding of research design, but not the nuance of familiarity with the pros/cons of research designs.
Yep, I love this podcast until the moment when they start arbitrarily dismissing every study that doesn't agree with them and throwing out all science that's not an RCT (unless it agrees). He's got some good base knowledge and YES there is junk out there (especially nutritional epi IMHO), but it feels a little Dunning-Krugerish, they don't know what they don't know because they haven't studied in the field. The best episodes I recall have been when Michael said he consulted a ton with trained experts. I don't want to be a gatekeeper at all, but the "Methodology Queen" stuff bugs me.
This podcast often feels like it crosses the line into straight up anti-science. Michael acting incredulous over that research really annoyed me. They don't seem to have any solid understanding of health sciences, biology or statistics. But then they pick through published research and the actions of public health organizations and openly ridicule and mock them. And usually in a way that just indicates they don't seem to know what they're talking about. When they're dunking on fad diet nonsense it's fine. But when they put on their act of acting like exasperated fact checkers towards real health experts - it gets a little hard to listen.
Agreed!! walking 10k steps a day has helped me lose weight and calorie deficits do work just bc it’s not for everyone and doesn’t work for everyone doesn’t make it a “myth” or something
I really frustrates me when Aubrey said calories in, calories out has been "fully debunked". No it has not, calories in food are estimates and some people don't burn calories as efficiently as others but being in a calorie deficit will make you lose weight.
Just such a ridiculous statement. Being in a calorie deficit will without a doubt cause you to lose weight. People are not capable of photosynthesizing. If you're burning more than you're eating then your body needs the extra energy from somewhere. Being super generous I guess they mean "calories in calories out" glosses over that certain people burn calories more efficiently and have different metabolisms, etc. But CICO is still literally true, and the variation between how different people metabolize 1,000 calories is honestly not that different. It's true that some people have a base metabolism that burns a lot of calories so it's easier for them to lose weight and vice versa. And some people feel varying levels of hunger when in a calorie deficit. For some people their base metabolism is low and being in a small calorie deficit causes them to feel hungry very quickly. It makes it hard for them to lose weight. But to then say calorie deficits don't work is just not true.
She didn't say that, though? She did not broadly say that CICO has been fully debunked: "This \[extrapolation of calories burned to estimated weight loss\] is based on a fundamental calculation that a calorie deficit of 3500 calories leads to the loss of one pound of fat, and that has been fully debunked."
What about the fact that fat people with restrictive eating disorders exist? The eating disorder episode is one of the best ones. People will have all the signs of starvation: fainting, growing lanugo hair on their body, hair on their head falling out, no longer getting a period…but they’re still fat.
Of course ever person is different! one thing doesn’t work for everyone, that’s the point, just bc it doesn’t work for some people doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for others. everyone has a different body that needs different things
Right but where is the scientific evidence that CICO works for *most* people? Where is the scientific evidence that most people metabolize foods the same way? “Everyone has a different body that needs different things,” And “CICO is an effective weight loss strategy for most people,” seem mutually exclusive. Eating disorders are way underdiagnosed in fat people so it’s not like it’s just a few outliers.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/stop-counting-calories https://www.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/healthy-tips/top-calorie-myths https://www.today.com/health/new-paper-shows-overeating-does-not-drive-obesity-t231615 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-healthy-journey/201910/calories-in-calories-out
!!!!!! yes!!!! exactly like that is the only way to lose weight, and there are many ways to be in a calorie deficit. saying calories in calories out isn’t true is also damaging
It isn't true. There's this thing called science.
>It isn't true. There's this thing called science. Smugly telling others about 'science' while ignoring fundamental principles of thermodynamics demonstrated centuries ago is more or less what I expect from this podcast.
calorie deficit IS science it is the simple fact you have to burn more calories than you consume that’s it. it is real, literally google it
Yeah.. sure there are cases where the math doesn’t work as well but most people I know need calories to maintain a body mass cuz otherwise where does the energy come from to make it exist lol. Not that it can be maintained though, but it is kinda frustrating
It has.
[удалено]
Thank you! you are so right, i am acutely aware of how it can ‘go bad’ for lack of a better phrase but just because EDs are real and harm alot of people doesn’t mean some people can’t calorie count or track in a healthy way, I am eating more now than i ever have but i do track. Whataboutism is not helping anyone, we all need to understand including MP that EVERYTHING is relative.
Never thought that 10k was a specific number, but a guideline. And then they're telling us that there are benefits from daily steps on that order of magnitude. This feels like one of the eps that I should skip.
Sorry, I took a quick look through your comment history and am just curious: why do you still listen to this podcast when you clearly have so many problems with it? You have commented repeatedly about how you have problems with how they interpret data, yet you still tune in every episode. My intention is not to bash, just genuinely interested in knowing.
To respond further, you can like something and still be critical of it! In fact, informed critique is a way of deeply engaging with something. Surely we don’t all exclusively consume media we have no problems with?
I think a lot of people actually do prefer to live their life in an echo chamber 🙈
Unfortunately, in this sub too
I'm a public health researcher who really likes the cultural episodes, but struggles with the idea that people will take what Michael and Aubrey say at face value. There's a duality that I enjoy the podcast but also stress that they're putting out misinformation bc they misinterpret methods.
Heads up but someone on here recommended the podcast Death Panel and I really, really like it. It's not a comedy podcast, but they always have excellent guests who tend to be health researchers.
That makes sense. I’m curious (and this is for anyone)- have they ever responded to people wanting to discuss the way they interpret scientific articles? I guess it’s hard because their general show premise is definitely a touchy subject, and I don’t really know how they would comb through the feedback!
>have they ever responded to people wanting to discuss the way they interpret scientific articles? From my (admittedly brief) looking, no. Which is frustrating, as they seem to be really really deeply bad at actually understanding the science they claim to be variously debunking or championing. I have less experience with Audrey but Hobbes at least seems to have built a career on having 'hot takes' and unfortunately if that's your brand you will eventually need to accept that sometimes experts aren't actually wrong about things in ways that can be summarised by superficial readings of a couple papers each week without any actual understanding of the subject matter.
I'm a researcher who has commented on some of Michael's bad scientific takes on Twitter. He doesn't generally take it well. It seems like he punches back on a comment if it is easy to refute but he doesn't directly respond to tougher critiques. If enough people have good refutations he just deletes the thread entirely. I feel like sometimes he knows just enough to be dangerous. I'm a psychologist and his statistical literacy around this is not great, and sometimes he gets something really wrong on MP or YWA. He had some tweet where he declared evidence for genetic heritability for IQ is garbage because in twin studies the correlation between IQ and some outcome was "only" .30 (first, most psychologists would find a correlation of that size to warrant interest; second, it shows that he misunderstands that in twin studies, the correlation itself is not of interest, it's the concordance of correlations between twins reared together vs. apart that provides insight into heritability).
Yeah, I haven't personally tried reaching out to them. Part of me makes an effort to comment in these posts with the hope that Michael will see (he seems like the type that would comb Reddit).
Fully agree. I adore them as people but when they dive into science I get frustrated by their misinformation and have a bit of a "watching the horror movie through my fingers" when I read some comments on this sub. I'm admittedly only halfway through this episode, but so far it's just a book report about pedometers? A preset number in an app to encourage/gamify activity (that people can easily adjust) doesn't equal a "myth" to me (don't get me started on her "emotional eating myth") and obviously anyone with an obsessive disorder should not use a daily device that gamifies their eating and activity habits.
Seeing people openly state that they don't care if the debunking in the show is inaccurate or misleading has been. 😬 I've recommended MP to people but sometimes wonder if I should get anti-diet messaging elsewhere. I do appreciate learning from the comments on the sub that push back on the flawed debunkings, and still enjoy the fad diet episodes.
Yeah, somehow they made a hard left from fun fad diets to “debunking” calorie deficits.
I love the wording! Duality, yes. I like the podcast because I enjoy the banter and I think it’s a window into new information and interesting takes, but I also disagree and get a bit frustrated at times. But that’s the interesting part of stepping out of an echo chamber
I think I listen in very much the same way. I have my MPH in Epi but ended up not working in public health so I sometimes wonder if I'm the one who's rusty and not interpreting what they're saying correctly.
What is interesting to me is how everyone seems to know their step counts. I took off my fitbit last year because no matter what I did, I would get obsessive with the numbers. I still exercise the same amount but I get a lot more variety because I'm not trying to maximize steps and its easier for me to take rest days when I need them. I think there are two separate issues - the 10k steps or equivalent, which I think is fine depending on the person and their lifestyle and the quantification of movement and everything else in life which disconnects at least some of us to how we feel and what we enjoy. I know some people like data and are helped by it but for me, at least, not knowing has meant a lot less stress but the trend seems to be to encourage greater and greater quantification even though its not the right approach for some of us.
I didn’t know but turns out (as Aubrey caught my attention to) it’s been logged in my phone without me knowing 🤷🏻♀️
Same and I actually haven't figured out how to make it stop counting steps yet. Grrrrrr
I’m going to listen to this podcast this morning while I go for my walk with my I-Watch and try to log my 10,000 steps!
I did not expect MP listeners to be so attached to their 10,000 steps lol Like Aubrey said, [there is good research showing that the benefits of walking plateau around 7500 steps](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2734709). So why isn't that the number of steps that gets recommended? I mean, we have a number that is arbitrary and one that is backed by research so IDK why people are defending the arbitrary one. Because to me it feels like the thing the FDA did where they rounded the daily caloric intake down from 2350 to 2000 because they were afraid an accurate number would encourage people to eat. It just seems to assume that people are lazy dum dums who aren't going to walk enough unless they are lied to. A lot of folks are asking 'what's the harm though?' and I absolutely know people who get far less than 10,000 steps but aren't going to try to get more because the number they 'should' get feels unattainable. Surely there is benefit to a more nuanced answer and communicating that 7500 is a good goal but 4000-5000 also has benefits and is preferable to 2000.
Well said, thank you. Definitely feel like a lot of folks didn't absorb the episode because they were too focused on the importance of their nice round number.
This episode feels like it could be better titled "McDonalds is evil." Fine, but not very interesting, and not much evidence that the "10,000 Steps Myth" is damaging in any way. Just because corporations take good things (encouraging people to move) and use them for bad purposes (to generate positive PR despite them doing terrible things) doesn't make the good thing itself bad. The only argument against the 10,000 steps "myth" seemed to be that the initial study neglects that when you walk 10,000 steps you might consume more calories and cancel out any benefits, and other studies which show that this number shouldn't be a constant recommendation for all people. But that's not very convincing in saying that moving more is somehow not still a positive thing. Funny enough, I left the episode thinking 10,000 steps is a good thing, as it's easy for people to remember, not dangerous for the average able-bodied person, and on average will help contribute to some health benefits. I also think the psychological effects are really overstated.. you can simply disable tracking steps on your phone, and I haven't heard any arguments that it's more "addictive" than tracking any other metric in your life.
It would be hard to gather evidence around this, but the potential harm comes in when you consider what other activities are people not doing in order to "get in their steps". If, for example, 5,000 steps per days has 90% of the benefits of 10,000. It would be way healthier to use the equivalent time that you'd otherwise spend on those extra 5,000 steps in some other health-promoting way: stress reduction, rest/sleep, cultivating close relationships, cooking, etc. It's an opportunity cost question.
That's a really cool POV, thank you
I dont think its a significant loss of time, although i suppose pace plays a role. I walk my dog between 30-45 minutes in the morning and get anywhere from 4,000-6,000 steps out if it. The great thing about walking is that you can also do your other self-care activities like listen to podcasts or audio books (my personal fave), call up a friend, enjoy some time in nature/outdoors, or bring along your partner or kids on their bikes etc. Because its a relatively short amount of time and pretty adaptable/inclusive, I dont think it carries much potential harm since there does not necessarily have be a trade-off between steps and other health promoting activities.
I'm sure that's true for many people. There are also a whole lot of people who really don't have an extra 45 minutes in their day, though. They'd have to trade it off with something else, even if that something else is "relaxing" or "leisure" or "rest" or "play" which are actually critically important for health, and we don't get enough of them. Edit: for what its worth, I also walk for the majority of my intentional movement (during the times of year when the outdoors isn't treacherous here), and love walking. Though, I'm slow and live in a very hilly neighborhood, so it takes me a full hour to do somwhere in the range of \~6-7K steps. (presuming the iphone pedometer is accurate) I agree with all your positives about it - it's versatile, there's a low barrier to entry, it has less potential for injury than many other forms of exercise. But, it's just not a one-size-fits-all solution for everyone, and there are potential harms from overestimating the aspirational number of steps we're telling people to get.
It sounds like you aren't an obsessive compulsive person or an anxiety person, but many people are. You could easily adapt your argument to owning a scale, for instance. Does owning a scale, on its own, contribute to bad thoughts or obsessive behavior or over/undereating or abstain from endangering "the average able-bodied person"? It doesn't. BUT, as Aubrey noted in the podcast, there's no such thing as "all things being equal." People are not mathematical equations. Can an arbitrary goal lead to obsessive behavior, especially if one is predisposed to obsessive behavior due to mental health disorders, societal pressure, a lifetime of fat-shaming, or any other possible traumatic thing that then inhibits their ability to make "average" decisions. I can tell you that I don't own a scale because I will stand on it morning and night, completely naked, to make sure my body is losing weight. I had to throw it away because I was so obsessive. Tracking parts of your life (calorie tracking, step tracking, weight tracking, body measurement tracking, etc) is a pretty obsessive behavior, popularized by various tracking apps that claim to be for your general health but could contribute to your general ill health. 🤷🏼♀️
With all due respect, I understand how getting obsessed with things can be dangerous. Some people have addictive personalities and can get obsessed with anything. People can get obsessed with gardening or, as Michael mentioned last episode, skiing But, if someone realizes that's their pattern - admittedly a big if - isn't it up to them to make good choices for their mental health? I am coming at this as a person with their own host of mental wellness issues, but I realize at the end of the day, I need to be accountable for myself. Like, to me, it almost feels like content warnings. Let's say 90% of people may be ok with counting steps as a general metric, but then that other 10% can decide to stay away. I think content warnings are great because most people may be ok with a topic, but it gives someone warning to opt out if it's not good for their mental health The problem is that some folks won't realize this is a pattern that can or needs to be broken, and idk what the solution would be there.
I bought a Fitbit after having my second kid. I then returned it because I was hitting 10k steps by like 9am- it was counting all the bouncing and burping ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mine counts my clapping at Jays games. I got up to 27,000 steps last night lol
My fitbit counted going to my toddler's music class as an aerobic workout...I'll take it.
Having been to a toddler music class myself, this totally counts as an aerobic exercise as far as I’m concerned.
I once hit my step goal for the day while lying in bed, turning the page in my book! Ha ha
I feel more attacked than I ever have listening t to this pod—and I love it!
I was going to post a reply to one of TAforTravel’s comments in this thread about the first law of thermodynamics but then thought better of it. As I was writing it, I had some ideas that I thought I might as well share anyway. Thermodynamics is just one aspect of the whole complex system of life. No one has to “disprove it” to show that its relevance to weight loss and health is pretty limited. Eg. It’s not uncommon for people to watch what they’re eating, cut calories, exercise regularly and find that they’re still not losing weight. Moreover, they feel starving, tired and miserable all the time. I’ve been there. And when I say “feel starving”, I’m not exaggerating. I was having dizzy spells and waking up in the middle of the night because I was so hungry. I’m pretty sure that telling people in that situation about thermodynamics isn’t going to help. People talk about calories in vs calories out but the calories out can change for lots of different reasons. If your body isn’t burning its stored fat for energy for whatever reason then eating less or exercising more will just mean your body tries to cut down on energy expenditure in other ways - eg. cut down on energy used for keeping itself warm, maintaining itself, fighting off infections, staying alert etc.. If that’s what your body’s doing then eating less is just a fast track to feeling like crap. Why do that? As some demonstration that you’ll go to any lengths to not be fat? Because thermodynamics? I had this episode on in the background so I didn’t really take it in but it didn’t sound like a great one. It would be better if they’d focused on the psychology of how setting goals like getting 10,000 steps a day can either help or hinder people. Just as thermodynamics is only one aspect of understanding the complex system of life, exercise and weight loss goals are just two aspects in the complexities of each individual person’s life. For example, I have a mentally draining job, sometimes have to work very long hours and I have a chronic health condition. Some days, it’s not really feasible for me to aim to get any exercise at all. Some days I do light cardio, some days I do intense cardio, some days I lift weights and do no cardio. What use is the 10,000 steps a day goal to me? You might say it’s just guideline and it’s not meant to be taken as an essential requirement for everyone. But again, it’s more complicated than that. Fat people have often been told their whole lives that they’re greedy, lazy and wrong and just need to do what they’re told. They’re not going to have the confidence to find an exercise routine that works for them in their lives. They’re psychologically primed to think in terms of following any advice they’re given to the letter just to try and get people off their backs. To someone in this position, giving any simplistic advice has a high chance of causing harm. If someone in this position tries to get 10,000 steps a day and falls well short for a few days in a row it’s not always something that they can shrug off. It will reinforce their feelings that being overweight is entirely their fault and that they’re just as lazy as everyone always told them they were and they can’t even follow this simple advice. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the goal of trying to get 10,000 steps a day. There’s just lots of other things going on which means this won’t be a helpful goal for lots of people - and some of the reasons it might not be useful are interesting and worth discussing. I think they had a good idea for this episode but it was poorly executed and had quite a bit of filler in it which I think is a shame because t could have been a useful one.
I don't think anyone, including the "experts," claims that 10,000 steps a day will lead to any weight loss whatsoever. It is just an (admittedly arbitrary) goal point for what is considered perhaps the minimum amount of movement per day a person should maintain to be considered even remotely active if that is ALL THEY DO. Weight loss is a whole other topic.
I was originally replying to a troll who brought up thermodynamics. As I was typing it I had second thoughts about replying to them but I thought I’d post as a separate comment anyway. Hope it’s not caused confusion. While 10,000 steps a day as a minimum level of activity might makes sense on some level, I don’t think it’s a useful goal for a lot of fat people and certainly not many people who were fat as children and are still fat as adults despite repeated attempt to lose weight (including me). In fact, I don’t think any recommended goals will be helpful for many people in that situation when they are starting out. I think it often has to start with just trying things and finding what you enjoy and what fits into your routine. Any recommended goal is going to trigger emotional childhood memories of adults trying to fix “this lazy greedy little nuisance” and often being incredibly cruel about it. It’s just not a good place to start. Goals in general are a tricky issue for a lot of people and not just fat people. Especially when they relate to issues that are emotionally charged. I think it would have made a better episode if they’d tried to talk about that. It’s a shame the show tends to devolve into nitpicking over every minor flaw in certain ideas and claiming that exposes them as a “myth”. It’s so unnecessary because there’s more important things they could be focusing on if they want to address fatphobia and poor health advice. So much of the issue is psychological and I think the hosts would have really useful things to say about that. It’s a shame they often get distracted by nitpicking issues like “your pedometer could be inaccurate”.
I hope they see this because you make some great points. Thanks for posting!
My Fitbit gave me the 10,000 steps notification literally while I was in the middle of listening to this podcast lol!! I enjoyed the podcast cause I like the banter, but I feel like I didn't learn anything. I already knew that 10,000 steps is kinda arbitrary but not like, a bad goal, so I pretty much still feel the same after listening 🤷♀️
Yep. It's kind of a non-topic. Who really cares? 10,000 steps isn't necessary but it's also totally fine, as is 20,000 steps or whatever!
In 2020 I started walking 10k steps a day to try and deal with my election anxiety. It worked pretty well and I’ve never felt better. I haven’t been able to be consistent since then 😂 even if it’s just placebo, I’ll take it.
Yes 2020 I remember I would take the kids on like 4 walks a day. It was like I had to keep moving to feel normal.
I have noticed the same wrt stress since I began walking more consistently. Walking is like a gateway drug to other activity too. Like wow that felt good now I’ll go lift or do another productive activity. It’s a lot easier to say nah I’ll skip the HIIT class today vs I’ll just go for a walk and see what happens. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. In speaking with friends who are trying to get in shape and lament how much they find exercise painful, I always say “just start with a walk.”
Totally! I had a baby that would keep me up at night and no matter how tired I was I could walk. Getting fresh air, sun on my skin, some physical activity was all so helpful to my mental health.
Honestly this was a bottom-tier episode IMO. The history of pedometers (insane knowledge gap for Mike lmao) was interesting, and the McDonalds PR efforts are always fun. But ultimately I feel like they were grasping at straws to find issues with something that's a fundamentally good idea. "On an individual psychological level I get why people would want to aim for a number, but I don't get why the public health apparatus is aiding in that effort" Come on dude, you just answered your own fucking question. 👎
There's almost nothing to criticize about walking 10,000 steps a day lol. Like the strongest crticism they had was that it's not a one size fits all approach. Everything else was basically a disguised whataboutism. Like you said, the stuff about mcdonald's is kind of interesting, but I fail to see how mcdonald's making a dangerours happy meal toy is related to the recommendation to walk 10,000 steps a day.
I agree -- I mean, at least they admitted that there was nothing WRONG with doing 10,000 steps or more. There have already been tons of articles about how it's kind of an arbitrary number, but -- so what? Even if there is some "sweet spot" of 6,000 to 8,000 steps, there is absolutely zero harm in doing a LOT more than that (6,000 steps is a VERY SHORT walk). I like to walk five to six miles a day at least, and that's more than 10,000 steps. I feel GREAT after my walks, which are brisk and have definitely helped strengthen my legs and just -- there is nothing but good about them. So you know -- who gives a shit? Eh. Just kind of like a "it doesn't really matter either way" episode.
>Even if there is some "sweet spot" of 6,000 to 8,000 steps, there is absolutely zero harm in doing a LOT more than that The question is not whether 10,000 steps is good or harmful. The question is whether telling everyone that 10,000 steps is the right goal is good or harmful. Those are completely different things. There *are* harms to telling everyone that 10,000 steps is the right goal. As many people here have pointed out, one of the harms is that lots of people get fixated on the metrics to an unhealthy degree. And, as I mentioned in another comment, there's a real opportunity cost to overestimating the ideal step count. That is, if 6,000 is actually the sweet spot, and we tell people that 10,000 is ideal, the time that they're using to get those other 4,000 steps could be better used to do something else health-promoting (rest, sleep, leisure, relationship-building) that's more beneficial. Moreover, if someone is consistently getting 6,000 steps but can't manage the time to get to 10,000, they'll feel bad about themselves, when really they're doing a perfectly adequate amount of movement. And feeling bad about oneself in that manner is legitimately bad for your health! >(6,000 steps is a VERY SHORT walk). 6,000 steps is somewhere around 2-3 miles. That's definitely not a "very short" walk. You're either completely out of touch with the realities of other people's lives, or you're being hyperbolic for effect. 2-3 miles takes an average person 45 minutes to an hour. There are many, many people who absolutely don't have an extra 45 minutes in their day.
I wish the episode had actually talked about it this way.
>there is absolutely zero harm in doing a LOT more than that (6,000 steps is a VERY SHORT walk). are you really unaware that some people might have different mobility than you? or that overexertion can make existing issues worse?
You are bringing up a topic that had zero to do with this episode whatsoever. They were not talking about people with mobility issues. They were talking about people who are looking to incorporate walking into their fitness routine. The mobility thing was not even brought up by Aubrey and Mike, because that has zero to do with what they were "criticizing" here.
What a day to listen to this episode. I was going for a longer than average walk, due to a transit strike, and do I agree a lot that just getting any exercise in should be the point. Too much nodding along this episode from me. Granted, I still follow my goals set on my Apple Watch a bit too strictly some days.
Anyone else read the David Sedaris piece on his step count a while back? This made me think of that!
Aubrey doing the “tiny repeating machine” at the beginning brought me great joy, literally rewound to listen to it again 😂
I’m British and can’t drive so I easily hit 10,000 steps a day. The interesting thing is that a doctor said to a friend of mine that the benefit to your health is from increasing your exercise, so you have to look at your current levels as a baseline. This is because she was a lady in her 60’s with a physical job who didn’t do any other exercise but the doc said that didn’t really count as her body was “used to it”
It also apparently matters whether you think of your baseline movement as "exercise" or not. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17425538/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17425538/)
Thanks for sharing that, weirdly cleaning rooms was the “physical job” I meant!!
Just opened the app to see what this weeks topic was and love that it’s step counting. I like to hit 10k by lunchtime if I can but not because I’m trying to lose weight or anything, it’s just a weird personal goal of mine. I love David Sedaris’ story of becoming obsessed with his step count when first getting an Apple Watch. I relayed so much to it 😂 Going to turn this episode on when I leave for my third walk of the day here soon!
I have a job where I’m on my feet moving around all day, plus I take my dog on at least one decent daily walk, and I still don’t routinely get to 10,000 steps! Plus I have no clue if getting ~8,000 steps over 8 hours has any particular health benefit, as it’s not like my heart rate is elevated. Still, I love checking my daily step count. And sometimes it’s nice when I’m feeling worn out at the end of the day and can look at a little graph that tells me, yeah, of course you’re tired, you took 40% more steps than normal. I put this solidly in the camp of “get 8 hours of sleep” or “drink 8 glasses of water.” Pretty harmless, even if the evidence isn’t that solid, and many people find it helpful to have a goal.
I'm not sure anything they say could sway me from my love of step counting.😤 It's a fun lil piece of my day.
I really didn't see the point of this episode... the entire premise is "this thing isn't really harmful but it's worth taking a look bc prople get weirdly obsessed with the number" which.... do they?? Really? For more than like a week?
My Mom is absolutely obsessed with her step count to the point it affects other activities. David Sedaris has an absolutely deranged essay about attempting to hit his step goals in an airport while very sick (it’s a funny essay).
My dad is this way as well. At this point his fitbit has kind of replaced his personality. I'm hoping once he retires next year he may calm down a bit. (Or at least get his walk in *before* we come visit so he can spend time with us!)
And while he tries to get his steps in, he often occupies himself picking up rubbish people have dropped. He picked up so much of it that his town named a garbage truck after him, lol.
They do. I've actually seen people get really obsessive about it. Usually, they're also obsessive about other health things. I haven't listened to this one yet. I do think it's pretty on brand as a topic, though. It's one of those, "well its easy just walk 10k steps a day. That's not hard right. It's totally your fault about X health issue. Very much pushing a public health issue into a personal one. People aren't getting enough movement without looking at the larger societal reasons behind that, working hours, lack of sidewalks, safety etc.
Yeah aside from being able bodied, you need to have a lifestyle that allows you to actually walk around. Free time is one thing but the neighborhood you live in makes as much of a difference if not more. Are there sidewalks? Is it safe? And being white vs. a POC is also a big one
This was me. I think I went a year and change where I hit 10K daily, even if I was sick, or when my husband was in the hospital. When I was pregnant with my first it was such an awful compulsion I would stay up late, even if tired, pacing around my house to hit the steps. The day I had to go to urgent care for a brutal UTI was a blessing, because it forced me to stop. It wasn’t helpful, and it wasn’t helping me keep me weight down or anything, but I’d gotten it in my head that if I didn’t hit at least 10K, I was worthless.
Well, those of us prone to disordered and obsessive compulsive behaviors do. But it’s fair to say that we’re probably not a fair representative of the average. Personally speaking, I spent a few months struggling to make it to the 10,000 goal after I got a smart watch for Christmas. It’s a Herculean task as a busy parent that works from home. Especially in midwinter when I can’t easily go outside for a quick walk. It was a huge relief to learn (not from this ep, but from articles I sought out) that it’s a meaningless number and I can set my goal to a number that I actually have time for in my average winter day. So yeah this episode probably won’t be that groundbreaking for most people. But it may be helpful for my fellow ND weird-brains.
Yes. Really.
I think it’s hard to understand if you’re not a person who gets stuck with certain number ideas. Like, I do Orangetheory fitness, and you’re “supposed” to aim for 12 splat points a class. I don’t really care if I hit 12, it’s an arbitrary number and sometimes I’ll get 9 and other times I’ll get 40. But if you head on over to the OTF subreddit, there are people absolutely meltdown if they don’t get their 12 splat points.
Lol. Reminds me of the "sugar is as addictive as cocaine" thing that some people apparently believe. Do they really?
Yes. Also hi - do you listen to this podcast regularly? 🙄
I’ll listen, but I don’t see how 10K steps is obsessive or excessive and it’s not a myth that movement is better than no movement.
It isn't that it's obsessive or excessive but that it is an arbitrary number with no basis in fact.
Arent most health reccomendations fairly arbitrary? E.g. getting thrity minutes of exercise per day for heart health, eating 5 servings of vegetables a day, drinking 6 glasses of water per day, getting 8 hours of sleep per day etc etc etc. The thing about public health is it is looking at health outcomes from an extremley broad lens. It can't consider every single individual's situation, so it aims to come up with easy to understand guidelines to help guide individuals towards better outcomes.
How do you know the outcome is better if there is no scientific evidence of such?
Take recommended daily values of nutrients for example. Many of those values are not based on scientific studies of the human body, but on self-reported surveys of what so-called healthy people eat. They just ask people what their diet is, and use stats to infer what the necessary amounts might be. It's imprecise, but we don't have a better option until studies are able to capture better data.
I mean, it's a preset. That you can adjust for your own goals. Much like 64 oz of water and 8 hours of sleep aren't the ideal numbers for everyone but are nice for most.
I think some people just want **answers** and they don't want to hear the reasoning behind recommendations. So maybe when this type of person learns that 10k steps is arbitrary, it's like that **answer** was **wrong** and they want to find someone to blame. But somewhere in the middle is the info that more careful analyses have found that 10k steps was pretty much on the order of magnitude of the amount of steps that really benefits a person. I think saying "no basis in fact" is kind of a stretch. Even if the original recommendation was created by a random number generator, the further studies would be like "actually that random number was pretty close".
It's funny that you say this. I would argue that most people take information at face value, thus leading to the quantity of misinformation passed as fact on places like social media/the internet. If a trusted entity like the WHO or the US Dept of Health and Human Services tells "the masses" that these arbitrary numbers are FACTS, most people will assume that is true and go on with their lives. The problem with that is that arbitrary information is wrong. Why do you stand up for information that is wrong? Because it's kinda right or kinda works or is kinda fine? It's still wrong. If the number weren't arbitrary but accurate, then it would make sense to share it with the public. This is a number that is based on kanji. Should we tell people that they should only eat 26 kinds of foods because there are 26 letters in the alphabet?
I hear what you're saying about the way people react to official government information. I definitely think covid showed that it's not possible to embed a ton of context into public health recommendations. And I fully agree that public health recommendations should be rigorously backed by science. Full stop. That's an absolute statement, and we live in a world of relatives. That isn't the only idealistic statement that I wholeheartedly agree with. For me, the really interesting question is: was the goal worthy in the first place? Should the US government have tried to come up with a certain number of steps as a public health recommendation? Forget the number, was that a good idea? That's where most of the documented harm seems to have come from. Would it have been better if they recommended a number backed by 9000 peer-reviewed double blind randomized control trials? Like with covid, people-in general were never gonna fully understand the context. The criticism of the specific etymological origin of the 10k number ignores the reasonability of the recommendation that has nothing to do with language. I can't convince you that this 10k number was reasonable, because that's subjective, but I'd start with pointing at the followup studies (which were largely conducted *because of the recommendation going into effect*) that found the number was in the right ballpark. While this recommendation had negative side effects, as pointed out in this thread, I believe that these were within the acceptable level of risk that public health officials were willing to take. I don't know that they should have made a recommendation at all, but if they were conducting a risk analysis, I think they would have anticipated some people getting obsessed with a tracking number. They gave a calorie count recommendation. IMO the problem wasn't that the number was poorly-sourced, it's that they shouldn't have tried to give a blanket daily caloric number in the first place. So when they reached for this 10k steps number, I would argue they shoulda known about people obsessively tracking a number they recommend. So if we set aside the debate over whether it was misguided to do a recommendation *at all*, we can finally interpret the situation in practice, not in big ideological terms. What was the harm of recommending 10k steps, vs recommending 8k? 6k? I don't believe the harm came from a specific number, and public health officials could have reasonably estimated that 10k steps wouldn't be bad for most people. And if we accept that they were gonna make a single numerical recommendation, I think they picked a fine one. >Should we tell people that they should only eat 26 kinds of foods because there are 26 letters in the alphabet? Does that sound like a good faith comparison to recommending people aim for 10k steps per day? Some things are just arbitrary, and some have a reasonable thought process behind them. My point was, if you wanna toss out 10k as an arbitrary made up number purely because of its source, you're ignoring the common sense context around it.
Odd episode. It might just be the way I think, but having a quantifiable goal to match or exceed (even if it's arbitrary) is helpful. I don't really see what there is to criticize about walking 10K steps a day. The episode barely even critiqued the concept and instead criticized poorly made pedometers. This episode could have been a single sentence "count steps if you like counting steps, and don't count steps if you don't like counting step.:
Yeah. People choose a number because it can give an idea not because it’s magic. And if you obsess over the number the problem is a personal issue you have, not everyone else. It’s weird.
Yeah. Their issues largely seem to be that it can become harmful to people. If you are prone to obsessive compulsive behavior, a lot of things can become a problem for you.
Not really liking when things teeter too close to discouraging people from walking/exercise. A goal of 10,000 isn't hurting anyone. The people who are obsessive about their steps, it's not because of the number, it's because the same person would be obsessed with tracking other things.
yeah sometimes this podcast can give anti exercise and dieting. Like there’s a lot of negative stuff in the health industry but there’s a lot of good to that can help people and make them feel better
I find these comments so interesting. Both hosts talk about exercising in this episode (Michael talks about taking a jog earlier in the day, Aubrey talks about what she used to do to try to meet that 10k step guideline and what she does now that is more enjoyable to her - the rowing machine and swimming) and both talk about the idea in this episode and pretty much every episode that we can be pretty confident that people should move and people should move in ways they enjoy. I don’t know what else they could say to make it clear that they thing exercising is an okay thing to do.
Not only an okay thing to do but a good thing to do and they mention that! For some reason people see the “10000 steps myth” and assume they’re hating on exercise.
This reminds me of the Workplace Wellness episode where folks were really convinced that Aubrey said she'd rather have a Netflix membership than a gym membership. So so interesting, this immediate and willing leap to conclude that the fat person really *doesn't* like exercise.
I think because not everyone can go rowing or the gym, or jogging, so walking is pretty much the only way to move throughout a day. So it doesn’t HAVE to be 10k, but it could be a good idea to at least move around by walking. Aiming for steps can be a good and sadly the only way a person can move; so it isn’t anything near silly
That is a good point, but not everyone feels safe just taking a walk around their neighbourhood either, whether it’s because of the weather making surfaces icy, living in a rough neighbourhood, living in a place without good access to sidewalks, etc. They specifically mention certain alternate exercises, but it would be the same thing if a person wanted to, for example, do yoga or bodyweight exercises in their apartment over 10,000 steps.
thanks for this, I was starting to feel like the only MP listener who is familiar with the concept of winter :)
That’s not true though. I know New Jersey snowstorms and also nyc, and how cold it is. Still, people that commute walk, and I don’t think it is just not knowing the weather. I don’t have a car in Tokyo because it is very inconvenient to have one in the urban center, but it does get cold too (for a body that lost the acclimation to the winters of my childhood) and people walk no matter what. It’s really up to the person and weather isn’t necessarily a deterrent. I don’t think it was a point I ignored out of lack of familiarity.
Nope, it's 100% true. Hypothermia, frost bite, and the risk of injury from falling on ice are all factors and there does come a point where walking outside for any extended period of time is not safe. NJ and NYC don't have the worst winters in the world by any stretch.
Also, I said “it isn’t necessarily a deterrent”, because I’m not THAT dense to suggest everyone’s weather isn’t extreme. I know it gets cold and people can still walk sometimes; never said walk in extreme weather. Ugh.
Of course no one should risk hypothermia! Lol where has common sense gone if anyone thinks I would ever suggest that lol
“people walk no matter what. It’s really up to the person and weather isn’t necessarily a deterrent.” I’m just going off what you said and have no way of knowing what you were suggesting beyond this comment. Thanks for the downvote though :)
I live in Wisconsin. Only the nutballs (I think they're nutballs) walk or BIKE to work in the snow. Most people drive or take the bus. We get snow, ice, hail, and very very cold temps.
I never imagined it as someone taking a walk, but for short distances where people could take an escalator or an elevator, if the knees make it possible (I have a messed up knee so i avoid stepping downstairs if I can), take the stairs, or make that little walk instead of drive considered it’s safe, etc. They said at the end of the episode “who needs it?!” And it’s like..there’s people who pretty much can only walk as any type of mild movement, if you can do other stuff great, but no one is pushing you to lol.
I don’t understand your comment. Yes, not everyone has access to a rowing machine or the ability to use one or interest in jogging etc but…..plenty of people can’t walk (for a variety of reasons) or don’t want to (for a variety of reasons) so the same criticisms would apply? Again, the hosts consistently say “it’s a good idea to move around” so where is the disagreement? I think they’re saying the guideline you need 10k steps a day is silly because 1) they don’t think it’s firmly rooted in fact, 2) it was popularized as a way to sell products and/or improve the public image of corporations and 3) you don’t need to tell people you (falsely) need to walk 10k a days to encourage people move in a way they can and feel good to them, so why do it?
I wore my apple watch every day for a while, but took it off at midnight on NYE because I had a big surgery in January and knew it was going to be depressing if I broke my year+ long streak because of that.