Maintenance Phase - The 10,000 Steps Myth

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

This week we're digging into the weird  history of an omnipresent fitness goal. Episode comes free with a happy meal.Support us:Hear bonus episodes on PatreonDonate on PayPalGet Maintenance Phase T-shirts, stickers and moreBuy Aubrey's bookListen to Mike's other podcastLinks!10,000 Steps: A Brief HistoryDo We Really Need to Take 10,000 Steps a Day for Our Health?A Japanese first-mover in the fitness wearables raceCounting Every Step You TakeWhen does wearing a fitness tracker do more harm than good?McDonald's Enlists Trainer To Help Sell Its New MealGet happy with McDonald's Go Active Happy Meal for adultsMcDonald's StepometerMcDonald's pushing salads and pedometersThe fight for healthier McDonald's Happy MealsStep-It Canadian TV ad McDonald's serves up Happy Meals for grow-upsMcDonald's removes fitness tracker from Happy MealsA Very Serious Review of McDonald’s Flesh-Burning Fitness TrackerMcDonald’s quietly ended controversial program that was making parents and teachers uncomfortableWatch your step: why the 10,000 daily goal is built on bad scienceWhen does wearing a fitness tracker do more harm than good?Why Counting Your Steps Could Make You UnhappierHow many steps are enough? Thanks to Doctor Dreamchip for our lovely theme song!Support the show

I have one. Oh! It came to me this morning. That's very fun. Uh, welcome to Maintenance Faze. The podcast you can count on. That's great! Isn't it actually legitimately good?

I think it's the first good one that I've had since we started this show. Look, it's no inconvenient tooth. What? Trash. Trash. Once every 20 episodes, one of us just has to nail it. You're Michael Hobbs.

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Show? Yeah. Do you know that's kind of annoying? That actually makes it really hard for me to do it. Has anyone ever told you? It's very difficult. Now, who's the tiny repeating machine? What someone else is repeating. You can support us on Patreon and Apple and by T-shirts

a T-Public and there's links in the show notes. Look at that, you did it, I fucked it up. And today we're talking about fit bits and 10,000 steps. I'm calling this episode the myth of 10,000 steps. Oh, we're going for it. You said myth was too strong for the sugar stuff. Yeah, because they weren't all totally myths. It was a little more complicated.

This one, full on a myth. I like it when they're not complicated. I think when they're simple. Michael, what is your understanding of this sort of 10,000 steps mark? and what would you say is your relationship to it? Are you a person who tries to get your steps in? I'm okay. I'm like half spoiled on this because every once in a while I will kind of go around my like methodology Twitter places. And I will hear tale of the fact that this 10,000 steps thing is like totally fake, but then I have known

that you were doing this episode for like six months. So immediately upon seeing any reference to the 10,000 steps number, I'm just like, nope, nope, nope, close window, control W, like I don't wanna get spoiled. So I know that it's probably not true, it's kind of like a suspiciously round number, but the thing is I also probably could have just

expected that from the premise of our podcast. Yeah, totally, totally. If we're covering it. Yeah, if we're here. Yeah, that's right, that's right. And no, I'm not really a 10,000 steps guy. I'm not really someone who tries to quantify my health stuff. I am actually fairly health conscious,

but in a qualitative way. Just like, I haven't left the house today. I don't really use the apps that track your jogs. I don't know how fast I run a mile. I've done a couple half marathons. I couldn't even tell you what my times were. How about you, do you count anything? I was absolutely a hardcore 10,000 steps lady

for a couple of years. Yeah, absolutely. This was when I was not seeing a doctor. And I was like, I better be at the top of my game everywhere else if I'm not seeing a doctor, right? That's bleak. And I would go walk in Peninsula Park, this Rose Garden in Portland,

and just walk around the big loop until I got my 10,000 steps and then I'd walk back home. And then did you find it useful doing it? Or like, how do you think about it now looking back? I enjoyed it. It definitely like got me out of the house. I found this park that I really liked and like to spend time in and I would like meet people and meet their dogs and I get to pick out my cute workout leggings and all that kind of stuff, right? But it was also coming from a place of deep anxiety and almost sort of this super stitious desire

to believe that I just, if I just did that, I'd be fine. Even though I didn't have a doctor, right? It was a coping mechanism. It wasn't actually, like, for love of the game. You know what I mean? Most of adult life is like setting arbitrary goals and then reaching them. And so I've always been fairly magnanimous about people who find this framework useful because it's like, for you, it's like 10,000 steps a day for other people, it's gonna be like 45 minutes

of walking a day. For other people, it's like I need to walk my dog or I just wanna leave the house once a day. I mean, people kind of come up with these rubrics and like it's not really clear to me that one is all that much better than the other, whatever works for the person. And so it always seemed kind of harmless to me, honestly. It's like, yeah, 10,000 steps, whatever,

5,000, 15,000, whatever works for you. Yeah, I think this is one, I would put it in a similar category, which is like, it's definitely not the worst or wildest thing that we're doing as a culture around sort of helping fitness stuff, right? But it is one that is considerably out of step with the actual science, right, in a way that I think is really interesting. And I think part of what interested me about looking into this was that it really feels like this 10,000 steps number has on a cultural level taken on that kind of

superstitious overtone of like if you don't hit 10,000 steps like something bad is going to happen to your health. And as ever, all of the science that we talk about on this show is a scatter plot, right? And there's a pretty wide range of acceptable numbers of steps to get. I like it when you transition us

from personal preamble to the content of the show. Oh, look at that. As if this is the format I've been writing in for years. And it could lead, it gives way to the not graph. That's what we're talking about. Yeah, that's right. So 10,000 steps is sort of all around us. It's the default goal on a Fitbit,

on an Apple Watch, on an iPhone. It's recommended actually by a number of health authorities around the world, authorities in Japan and Australia, the World Health Organization talks about 10,000 steps. Okay. This is a moment in the story where I imagine like a record scratch and a voiceover of 10,000 steps going, yeah, that's me.

You're probably wondering how I got here. If we're going to talk about 10,000 steps, we kind of can't do that without talking about the device that gets us to step counting. Be it, be it. Be it. Well, pre-be it, be it. Just straight up mechanical pedometers, right? Oh, wait, what?

Before there were Fitbits, there were actual analog step counters. Are you kidding me? I didn't know this existed. Why, I thought- Michael, I thought this was like an invention of the internet era. Michael, tell me you weren't in Weight Watchers without telling me you weren't in Weight Watchers.

Mechanical pedometers have been a thing. How do they work? They like attached to your hip or something? Yeah, absolutely. There's like, it's historically, most of them were built by watchmakers because it's just a totally mechanical weighted system. Oh, wow.

These are clip it to your waistband, right? All it does is count your steps and it clicks when it counts your steps. Oh my God, you're walking in the park and it's like click, click, click, click, click, click, the whole time. Yeah, yeah, but like, it's not super duper loud. Okay.

But it does click, right? So steps or historically, paces have long been used to measure distance. In the research for this episode, I learned that the word mile comes from the Latin for 1,000 paces. Also, we call a foot a foot. We do.

Like a foot that you walk with. We do. Yes. Pedometers themselves were conceptualized centuries ago. Actually, there are some sketches from Da Vinci. What? But the first one was actually created in the late 1700s by a Swiss watchmaker using the same mechanism he developed for a self-winding watch.

A number of pedometers were invented around the same time in different countries. One of those people tinkering around with this thing was Thomas Jefferson. Okay. So Jefferson reportedly designed the pedometer and then commissioned it to be made by a watchmaker in Paris. And the mechanism for his pedometer is very funny.

You would put it in your like pocket, and there would be a hole in your pocket. The pedometer was tied to a piece of string, and the string was tied to your leg. Oh. So when your leg moved, it like yanked on the string and registered another step. That just seems really, wouldn't it?

Create friction in one leg, and then you just end up walking in a circle. Stir another step. That just seems really, wouldn't it create friction in one leg and then you just end up walking in a circle? I know. I like the idea that it's like a boat with one ore. Is this where we get the phrase pulling my leg? I don't think so. Because pedometers were such a joke. So pedometers were and are famously inaccurate.

They're much better than they used to be, but they're still not great. Pedometers were and are famously inaccurate. They're much better than they used to be, but they're still not great. The iPhone pedometer, which is one of the most widely used currently, is estimated to under count your steps by about 21%. So if I get 10,000 steps on my phone, I've actually gotten 12,000 steps, roughly. Potentially, the other ones that you wear

at your waistband or your wrist, the sort of more mechanical pedometers, have been reported to capture things like typing as taking steps. Nice. If you have it on your wrist, there is one review that I read where the guy was like, I've written one paragraph of this story,

and in that time, my pedometer has logged 54 steps, and I was like, okay. I'm like a championship fidgeter. So like I bounce my leg up and down. So I don't know if that means I'd have like 80,000 steps at the end of every day. So, pedometers have been around for quite some time, but they don't really catch on, right?

They're sort of around Jefferson's tinker in around with them. They sort of get a little bit more of a start in the 20th century. But for the most part, they are known to sort of like nerdy quantifier types, right? Part of the reason the pedometers don't catch on is that for decades, selling a pedometer meant explaining what a pedometer does and why you would want one and what you would use it for. It would be like selling something today

that was like, we'll count how many breaths do you take. Yeah, this number would not be meaningful to me whatsoever. At this point, I am transporting you, Michael, to Tokyo in 1963. Good job, Garth. Oh, wait, I think I'm Garth. Yeah, I think you're the Garth. It was my Halloween costume I'm Garth. Yeah, I think you're the Garth. It was my Halloween costume. That Garth. I'm not. I really love that we have us saying that in stereo. That Garth.

So we're in 1963. Tokyo is getting ready to host the 1964 Olympics. So there are a lot of conversations about health and fitness and sports sort of in the air, right? There is a professor and researcher in Tokyo who is worried about the rising numbers of fat people in Japan. This Dr. Hattano leads a research team that determines that Japanese people at the time walked an average of three to 5,000 steps per day.

His research team figured out that if they went up to 10,000 steps per day, all of those average Japanese citizens could burn a few hundred calories each day, and they added that up to a projected weight loss of 20 kilograms or 44 pounds in one year. Oh, this is the thing we've come across so many times.

Calories in calories out, baby. You take very small adjustments to food intake or exercise, and then you extrapolate those out over the year, and then you're like, oh, switching from 12 ounce coffee to eight ounce coffee will make you lose seven pounds over the course of a year, whatever. Totally. This doesn't take into account that people compensate in other ways.

Yeah, this is based on a fundamental calculation that a calorie deficit of 3,500 calories leads to a loss of one pound of fat. Right. That has been fully pound of fat. Right. That has been fully debunked. Right. Because your body adjusts its temperature, hunger, and fullness, cues, all kinds of other systems kick in basically to get you to eat and expend the same number of calories every

day. So, this research starts sort of making the rounds in the medical community in Japan. And the head of one of Tokyo's biggest clinics is talking to an engineer about this idea that he has that people need to increase the number of steps that they're taking each day. That engineer works for a clockmaker called Yamasa Toka-Kaki. Two years later, that company in 1965 introduces something called the Manpou-K, which literally translates to the 10,000 step meter.

Okay. That's a number that they are lifting directly from this sort of calories and calories out research. So basically it's a number pulled out of thin air. Exactly. People are getting two to three thousand steps and they're like, if you were getting 10,000, this is how much weight you would lose.

And there's some speculation and debate about why they chose that 10,000 steps number in particular. Some folks say it's from the research. Some folks say that it's sort of a number of significance in Japanese language and culture. It's a number that pops up quite a bit. Other folks say that the character for 10,000 in Japanese kind of looks like a person walking.

Okay. And the product catches on in a big way. They start releasing different models of the 10,000 steps meter. In 1991, they steps meter in 1991, they release a sort of, they call it their discreet pedometer. It's a tie-tack pedometer. What's that mean?

Like it's a pedometer in a tie-tack. What's a tie-tack? Oh, a tie-tack is like the little pin that people wear on their tie to fasten the skinny part to the fatter part. There's a name for that. I just call it the little tie clip thing. I've never owned one.

I was not anticipating teaching you a thing about menswear. Yeah, I just call it like the pointexter clip. Because that's always like in the event of the nerds, they always have those on their tie. Oh, that's a tie bar. Wait, there's two different things now. There's the tie clip and the tie. Okay, spin off podcast, spin off podcast. We'll take this up later.

Later, it's a stay tuned for later in the episode when Mike learns what a double-winsor is. I also do, you're joking, but I do not know what the fuck it is. I think I might have tied more neck ties on myself than you have tied on yourself. You have seen the way that I dress in my physical and personal gifts. So this is not a surprise to you. So, they described this tie-tack pedometer as being, quote, for the salary man who does not want the world to see his pedometer. So, it's a pedometer on your tie, and they think that's gonna work?

Yeah, totally. So, just like how much it bounces up and down, I guess, basically. I mean, all of these are just measuring either movement or acceleration. Those are sort of the two models. Yeah, this does seem like it wouldn't be very accurate. So this 10,000 steps meter gets introduced in 1965. Fitbits aren't introduced until 2009. So what I wanted to figure out is like, what's happening with pedometers in the intervening years?

So I started looking around and first I found an article from The Guardian. It's an odd one and the tone of the article is basically like, what's this pedometer? Everybody keeps talking about I can't hear about pedometers everybody keeps talking about? I can't hear it about pedometers. What are they? I am going to send you a quote from this piece in the Guardian, just because it's like a fun little ephemera.

It says, footpower is enjoying a renaissance, thanks to an addictive gadget called a pedometer. Born on the hip and looking like a digital stopwatch, pedometers are rapidly making the transition from an underground craze sported solely by fitness geeks to the must-have gizmo for those in the know. Robbie Williams, Caprice, and Cameron Diaz are a few of the celebrities who are fans of the pedometer. Yeah. Robbie Williams?

It's like a celebrity item. The name of this piece is stars join the fitness craze that makes every step count. What? And it appears in the society section. I'm loving pedometers instead. That'd be fun. Okay, okay, okay, good.

Yes. To me syllables. More karaoke. Who is Caprice? I don't know. If they're famous and written there in a boy band, that's the only option. So then I started looking at pedometer media from 2004, because I'm like, everyone's talking about a pedometer, what's going on?

And Michael, I find a bunch of articles about McDonald's. Oh. This is where shit gets weird. It already got weird when you told me that the Thai thing has a name. So in 2004, McDonald's launches something called their go active happy meal for adults. Oh, what?

Okay. The meal consists of a bottle of water, an entree salad, which McDonald's had just introduced the year before. Uh-huh. And what they're calling a stepometer. Oh. It's a clip-on pedometer.

During this promotion, they distribute 15 million. Wow. Stepometer. Right? How much was the happy meal? 4.99. How the fuck is this Fitbit so cheap? It must have cost nothing to produce. It's not a Fitbit buddy, this is the mechanical cheapity cheap. Is it just

like a little digital readout on your hips? Yeah. It just like says a number basically? It's like a little calculator screen. They market the adult happy meal, the go active meal in an endorsement deal with Oprah's personal trainer. Bob Green. Fuck off. You knew Oprah had to be involved somehow. Baby, this is not the last we're going to hear of Oprah. Incredible. Basically, McDonald's sales had been flagging for a while.

And much of that was attributed to consumers starting to associate McDonald's with ill health and particularly with being fat. And it's the height of like obesity epidemic quote unquote media, right? This is like right when all of that is really kicking off. Yeah, when does supersize me come out? This is like in that era, right? Why?

Would you spoil it this way, Michael? It's a direct fucking response. To supersize me. Coming out. Yeah, this was peak like blame fast food for everything. Yeah, so 2004 is the year that supersize me comes out. Okay. And it is also the year that McDonald's introduces

these pedometers, right? At this time, their CEO has some very public health issues. time their CEO has some very public health issues. They had just brought their old CEO out of retirement to bring back their sort of flagging sales. They brought him back from retirement and he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 60. Oh wow, okay, yeah. And then it's like a perfect little juxtaposition

of like fast hooters unhealthy CEO a fast-hoot company dies of a hard attack basically. Well then they name a new CEO who's 43 and two weeks later that CEO was diagnosed with colon cancer. Holy shit. Okay. Then the president of McDonald's US division does a little proactive press and starts just telling reporters, like, FYI, my health is great. I love very active life with my kids. I work out four times a week. I've been doing it for 20 years. Don't worry about me. Getting my steps. That's not gonna happen to me.

Right, like, what a gross response. It's also very funny because it assumes that the CEO of McDonald's eats McDonald's with any of your shirt. Yes, correct. Absolutely, do not. Correct. I would say that those are much more referenda on the health of the lives of CEOs

than like McDonald's eaters. Yeah, this is the health effect of gulf and like leather backseats. So the reviews of the stepometer from this era are brutal and they are homeless. I can't believe something that was 499 for a pedometer and a salad and a water did not work great. So I found two reviews.

I'm gonna send you quotes from each of them. This is from unique reviews. So I found two reviews, I'm going to send you quotes from each of them. This is from unique reviews. Unique reviews. As anyone who's ever finished middle school knows, good intentions do not always result in good outcomes. The Hindenburg, the Salem Witch Trials, and the Titanic are just examples of this maxim. Unfortunately, McDonald's Go Active Step Ometer is another item to add to the list.

Well, we appreciate that they have good reason to want to change public opinion about McDonald's. We're not sure that this is the best way to go about doing it. The Hindenburg! I questioned whether the Salem Witch Trials had good intentions behind them, but that's... uh... maybe not here nor there. Uh... famously just looking out for everybody, cotton-mather. That's maybe not here nor there. Ha ha ha ha. Uh, famously just looking out for everybody, cotton mather. Who can fault the people drowning women, you know, they were trying.

Here is a quote from Outside Magazine. It says, these things are cheapo. The insides rattle about, and we could tell when it counted steps by listening to it. Brush against it, and as far as it knew, you'd walked five steps. Nevertheless, never having worn a pedometer for any length of time, it was rather addictive to see the number going up. We can see how this would be a carrot to beginners and inactive people. That's a good example of the more forgiving press around this is like, there's a set of baked in assumptions,

which is like anybody who eats at McDonald's must need a pedometer, must not be walking around, therefore maybe this is a net gain, but the press and media coverage at the time is incredibly clear-eyed about what's going on here. The New York Times calls it, quote, McDonald's latest attempt to recast itself as a purveyor of healthy food

in the face of criticism that fast food companies have contributed to the increasing number of obese people. Around this time, McDonald's also changes their chicken nuggets to be all white meat. I remember that. This is also around the time that they phase out super sizing. Right. And even though kind of all of the media at the time is like, this is pretty craven, right? It works. Yeah.

McDonald's sales increase, even with these like very sort of cosmetic changes to its menu. Right. This is all completely an effort at marketing. It's like the oil companies rebranding is like beyond petroleum. Yeah. I mean, we've talked about this before, but like, it also is weird that the fast food companies got like all of the blame for like American eating habits when like Apple bees is like just as bad as McDonald's, but like the fast casual sector doesn't have the same kind

of stigma. No, this is the famous thing about like the highest calorie dish you can get in the US at a chain restaurant is the pasta primavera at cheesecake factory. Right. Like the veggie pasta is the most caloric thing you can find.

Right. Once this sort of McDonald's quote unquote stepometer is introduced, it really does boost the profile of pedometers and there starts to be more media coverage about the utility of pedometers and all of that kind of stuff. That leads to the 2009 introduction of the Fitbit. 2009 is also when we got the Wii Fit.

Oh yeah, we remember that. Fucking things. We're gonna remember that. The little exercise moves with your grandma with got the Wii Fit. Oh, yeah. Remember that. Fucking thing. It's exercise moves with your grandma with like the little controller. Totally, it would make a little avatar of you based on your height and weight. And I'd just get around a little avatar. Just roll. Just a little butterball. Just a bunch of circles, just a little snowman.

Totally, absolutely a snowman. Yeah. In 2015, the Apple Watch is no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, tools is fill in your circles on your Apple Watch, right? And this was a way in to get people to think about this thing that they had never really considered as being any kind of necessity now becomes like a daily essential thing during this period of like the 2010s. And also I guess it's linked to the rise of smartphones too, that you didn't have this like internet enabled device with you at all times, and then all of a sudden you did, and it's like well it has the capacity to do this.

Totally. It's kind of like you might as well like turn it on. Do you even need to turn it on anymore? I think it might just come pre-activated. Wait, really? I think so. Wait, let me, I'm checking my phone app. I have the fitness app.

The health one with a little heart in it. That's where mine lives. Oh, I can set my daily move goal, lightly moderately, highly, okay? Stay motivated with fitness notifications. Absolutely not. Don't allow. Fuck that. Never. Oh yeah. God, Jesus Christ. It's been tracking your steps, no? Yeah, fuck. It says 8,037 steps. Yeah, there you go. Because I went jogging this morning.

Yeah. What the fuck? I feel violated and surveilled, but also I have to do two dozen more steps to get it over 10,000. Well, that puts you back in league with our old pal Oprah Winfrey. In 2016, the year after the Apple Watch is introduced, Oprah writes in O magazine that she is pledging to get 10,000 steps a day because she wants to feel strong and fit. Okay. Again, sure, fine. But also, when Oprah writes about a thing that she's doing, it's never just like, hey, this one lady told us about this one thing she does.

Yeah, Oprah says literally anything, just like a billion dollars goes to whatever, whatever. If she's like, I bought a rhododendron, then like the rhododendron industry, like quintuples and size immediately. That same year, 2016, we get another wave of pedometer news. And this time, it's about kids' pedometers. Oh, okay. To explain, I have just sent you a YouTube link. This is footage of a child counting to 10,000.

Just one, two, three. Let me know when you're ready. I'm McDonald's. You can have fun with your food. And have fun with steps. Put this step in activity ban. And your McDonald's happy meal. So this is like an animated, it starts out as like an animated ad of a pirate ship and a bunch of slices of apple pushing a chicken nugget off the plank.

Yeah. Like they're murdering the chicken nugget. And then a shark jumps up. And then a shark jumps up and then as the nugget falls into the shark's mouth, the shark turns into a real, a real non-animated child. And the child eats the chicken nugget. And then it's like, you can, you can have stepits. You can step, step your steps.

Step your steps. I've forgotten how it ends already. So it's 2016. We're seeing these ads for McDonald's, pedometers for kids. And that is because surprise, surprise. McDonald's has gotten a lot more bad press in the intervening years.

Right. Particularly post like 2010, they get a big wave of stuff. There's an artist that does something called the Happy Meal Project, in which that artist left a McDonald's burger and fries out on a counter to see how long it would take to decay and reported that it didn't grow mold

after a full six months. It was the same. I remember that. In 2010, San Francisco actually bans any meal with a toy, being sold in the city unless it's served with fruits and vegetables and the entire meal is less than 600 calories. This is widely understood to be a direct hit at McDonald's, right? In 2010 also, the Center for Science and the Public Interest, Sue's McDonald's, to stop

using toys to market happy meals, saying the practice is sort of manipulative. In their filings, they call it, quote, a highly sophisticated scheme to use the bait of toys to exploit children's developmental immaturity and subvert parental authority. I mean, I don't think that literally anything should be marketed to kids. So I'm fine with any restriction that stops a company from speaking to children. Totally. I'm cool with this shit.

One year later in 2011, full page ads appear across the country in major US newspapers, saying that happy meals should be banned altogether because they quote, contribute to childhood obesity. So again, all of this anti-McDonald sentiment is bolstered by McDonald's sort of believed role in the creation of fat kids, right? It's like, we've got all these fat kids.

Who do we blame? Let's blame McDonald's, right? This is the problem with the putting obesity at the center of like all of our fucking health stuff. It's like we just talk about food and how the food is bad and like kids should get more exercise. Around the same time, McDonald's has been the target of a few different campaigns to get them

to do things differently. One of them is a long-term campaign by evangelicals to get them to block porn on their public Wi-Fi networks. Wait, really? Absolutely, and McDonald's does it. Well, they've also been targets of a campaign to end the McDonald's school nutrition program. Oh, God.

That's a bleak oxymoron. Is it not, Michael? What is this? McDonald's was sending speakers and materials to schools to talk about nutrition, like McDonald's branded materials. Guys, no, no, no. Their main speaker is John Sysna,

who was the Iowa teacher who said that he lost weight eating McDonald's. Oh, he was the Jared from Subway of McDonald's? Uh-huh. He was the guy who was sort of like the counterpoint in a bunch of the media around Super size me. Oh, chances of libertarianism and moderate to high. John Sysna is on McDonald's payroll as a brand ambassador. Okay. There's some media of McDonald's being like a brand ambassador. Okay.

There's some media of McDonald's being like, look, John books his own events and we support him in that. If there's stuff we can send him, we do that. Da-da-da. And then the reporters goes to John and he's like, oh, I just McDonald's emails me and tells me what events to be at when,

where, and they make the arrangements. And then I just show, I don't like this. Yeah. I feel like corporations being given access to our kids. I think it's really bad. Yeah, so this is around the time that they phase out that program, but just like there's enough ambient pressure. It's crazy.

Around this same time unsurprisingly, once again, McDonald's profits are down and they've been down since 2013. So they're in year three of a decline in their profits, right? In the UK, they're at their lowest point in the chain's UK history. That's because they didn't get the Caprice endorsement. The Caprice. Okay, okay.. Free directions. The other thing that is happening at this time, Michael, Michael, is this is the

height of the fight for 15 campaign in the US. This is a campaign to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour. That campaign specifically focused on fast food workers. Right. McDonald's employees were consistently front and center. That's where we start getting all those statistics about like the average age of a fast food worker is like 36, dispelling these myths about like these are just jobs for teenagers or whatever. No one's really living on it. McDonald's is getting bad press all over the place

and their sales are down. It's not great. They were only paying that brand in Beth that are $9 an hour. Sure. Sure. That's what it was really about. Their next choice was to introduce

these steppet pedometers for kids. And very quickly, the whole thing goes south. A Facebook post pops up and gets shared like a hundred thousand times very quickly. Okay. Of a mom showing pictures of her toddler wearing the pedometer and then taking it off and showing this kind of gnarly,

like burn welts. Oh! Right, because in the ad, the little pedometer was like a watch. It's like a little mini apple watch thing, but it's in like pastel, like kid colors. Totally, and it's not, it is made to have the appearance of sort of like,

an apple watch or a Samsung Watch or something. It's just a digital pedometer with the little calculator screen, but they have a sticker around the rest of it to make it look like it's apps or whatever. Right, right, right. This Facebook post makes the rounds. It starts to garner media. McDonald says publicly that they have gotten

70 reports of skin irritation or burns to children. Okay. So they voluntarily recall all 32 million of these kids' pedometers. Holy shit. It's a huge, weird story. Yeah.

As with the 2004 pedometer, the 2016 kids' pedometer, it is an absolute piece of shit product. Yeah, As with the 2004 pedometer, the 2016 kids pedometer, it is an absolute piece of shit product. Yeah, it must be. Yeah. This is the one where the CNET reviewer does a review and says that they got 54 steps from typing. Oh, yeah. But then they took a 500 step walk and only 40 of those steps registered on the McDonald's kids' pedometer. So they should have said that it was a case-stroke monitor and not a walking monitor.

And get the kids typing more. The ringer published a review of the step at pedometer titled, a very serious review of McDonald's flesh burning fitness tracker. Nice. That was the head. The deck was just, I'm loving it. Nice.

Did anyone adjust the number for kids? For kids, also, was it 10,000 steps a day? Because they're little steps are shorter or something? They're actually supposed to get more than adults. There's some specific research on this, on sort of like how much, how many steps should adults get, how many steps should seniors get?

That's a different number. So let's dig in on the data, right? Let's do it. The research is really clear on this subject. There's not a single number that folks have arrived at, but what we know for sure is 10,000 steps is a fine number. It's not a bad number, but it isn't specifically tied to a decreased risk

of mortality or specific health conditions. Basically, in a bunch of the research and literature, they say, look, 10,000 steps is a pretty good shorthand for something that we know for sure, which is that people should be getting a certain number of minutes, about 150 minutes of what's called MVPA, moderate to vigorous physical activity. Oh, yeah, of course.

Each week, right? So 10,000 steps a day gets you there with little space to spare, right? And all of the research is basically just like, look, this only matters in so far as it gets you to that goal, right? Right. For adults under 60, most of the research shows that 6,000 to 8,000 steps per day is the sweet spot. Anything over 7,500 steps a day, your benefits sort of plateau.

And are these based on anything, are these based on the RCTs, or are they just these big cohort studies? These are big cohort studies. And they are looking much more at like, what's the scatter plot of people's actual existing activity patterns? So these are just associations, basically.

Totally. If you get more steps, your healthier could be, if you're healthier, you get more steps. Absolutely. So we can't say as a result of getting 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day alone, you will therefore have all of these other health outcomes. We can say there's a correlation between people who get 6 to 8,000 steps a day and people who have fewer sort of risk factors for stroke and heart disease. Right. So it's kind of meaningless, I'll put it in. A little bit, right?

I just tend to think all this stuff is bullshit. It's all still a shorthand to get at just like physical activity. Yeah, right? It seems like it's like fairly uncontroversial to say that like some level of physical activity regularly is like very good for you. Yeah. But then there's just this weird fucking project

to try to define specifics. And like, yeah, I just don't understand why. I mean, I guess on an individual psychological level, I get why people would want to aim for a number. But I don't understand why this sort of the public health apparatus is like aiding in that effort. I suspect that this comes from the pretty deep-running understanding of something's better than nothing.

Yeah. And if people are grabbing onto this thing, we might as well say, yeah, that's a good thing to do. I've gotten so radicalized. You really have. We're searching the show. You really have. It's these like correlations

and like you can try to control for stuff fine. But like we just don't really know and I don't understand this project of trying to define like the correct number of steps for the population as a whole when the population is 330 million fucking people and people have totally different needs and abilities and stuff.

It's like, what is the point of this? And it is a deep tail wagging the dog moment, right? Where it's like marketing came up with 10,000 steps and now there are all these researchers being like, why is 10,000 steps the number? Why is 10,000 steps, and now there are all these researchers being like, why is 10,000 steps the number? Why is 10,000 steps not the number? Where I'm just like, this is the wrong order for things to go in.

Right. And even if we were able to define that, like, okay, you should get exactly 61 hundred steps per day, then we're just back to like an arbitrary number that isn't going to apply to very many individuals, because different individuals have different needs. Right, and already, it's already pretty banal to say that like, yeah, try to get activity regularly.

I will say even within the like steps literature, there is a significant debate about the number of steps versus the pace of those steps. Oh, yeah, of course. Right, so people are like, well, if you take them really slow, do they really count? How much does it matter? And it's, so people are like, well, if you take them really slow, do they really count? How much does it matter? And it's like some indication that like,

there's some researchers who argue that you need to get a pace of 100 steps per minute minimum. And that's how you get the benefit of this. Shit. All of this like driving further and further into granularity, right? With this kind of stuff. I'm a brisk walker.

So maybe my 8,000 steps counts as more. Okay. I have like nervous little legs, just like, brrr, a little chihuahua. I really love that your response to finding out your own step count is like a case study and how weird this can make people. I don't like it.

You're just like, I don't like knowing it. Yeah. I should've had more than that, but also I don't care, but yes I do,, I don't like knowing it. Yeah. You're gonna have more than that, but also, I don't care, but yes I do, but shut up, you're not my real dad. I know exactly. Like, we've done this live on the show, me finding out that my phone knows my fucking steps, and now I feel totally surveilled.

Right, and also, it does kind of take over your brain, right? Yeah, I've gone through denial, bargaining. I mean, I will say there are a bunch of really hilarious, genuine little like influencers and cottage industries and whatever about like, how did you the stats on your pedometer? Right. What is wrong with people?

And totally, well, this is the thing that I told you about my nephew, just like getting one and shaking his wrist and figuring out that that did it. There was also a video that I found where they attached a pedometer to an electric drill. Oh, it's, and it's like, and it's like born in 2007. Yeah, totally.

You're just cheating yourself at that point. No one else cares about this. Unless it's for like a workplace wellness nightmare program. Like why do this? You have never had stronger high school vice principal energy than when you just said, you're only cheating. I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed. Everyone on the internet today.

So here's where things I think get interesting in the research. The thing that matters really the most, and there does seem to be quite a bit of consensus around this, is consistency. Oh, yeah. Moving around and moving around regularly and getting into the habit of moving around are all good things.

And it appears that the most important ingredient in consistency, regardless of how long you spend doing activity, the most important thing is like regular activity, right? It appears that the most important ingredient in consistency, it's liking the thing. Do you like it? Do you like moving around in the way that you're moving around?

Then you're gonna do it more regularly. That's the thing that matters for your health, is if you're doing something consistently, which happens when you do something fun. That you like. To wit me in my rowing machine, and also swimming, those are two of my favorite things. I am a water baby.

And walk in your little dog, walk in your little gentleman. A little gentleman, that's right. Oh well. Yeah. And like to wit you riding your bike around. I like riding my little bike's true. Oh, well. Yeah. And to wit, you ride in your bike around. I like riding my little bike. I like shouting at drivers.

What are some, do you have other faves? I feel like mine are rowing machine swimming hiking. I live in Seattle and you lose your visa if you don't go hiking at least once a week. So there's that. But then, yeah, I like going rock climbing because it's social, but it's not competitive. Oh, that's a good one.

Yeah, that's the thing is, it's only gonna work if you like, like it and look forward. Ooh, that's a good one. Yeah, that's the thing is, it's only gonna work if you like, like it and look forward to it. I have a very strong memory. I think part of the reason rowing machine makes my list is that I have a very strong memory of getting on my dad's rowing machine in the 80s when I was like a kid and being like,

what's he doing with this thing? What's it all about? And I got on it and started doing what I had seen him do on the rowing machine. And I was like, this's he doing with this thing? What's it all about? And I got on it and started doing what I had seen him do on the rowing machine, and I was like, this is an exercise, this is just a ride. He's just like doing a ride. So that's what it does for you.

It just felt like a game. It felt like a fun, you're just going like, we back and forth on this sliding seat. And that's ultimately kind of arbitrary too. Like whatever you find fun is due to like deep childhood needs or like my own weird anti-competitive stuff, but like, it's just gonna be different for different people. It seems like the only thing you can say

from the research is that like, try to get exercise and like do something you like. Absolutely. That's about it. I will say I am similarly in the camp of individual only, but mostly because as a fat person moving in front of other people is a god damn mind. Yeah, people are the fucking worst. Right. So like I am also in camp solo. Like if friends are like,

we're all gonna go for a hike. I'm like, have fun. Yeah. I'll go on a separate one by myself. Have you had shitty things happen when you've gone on hikes with other people? Absolutely. Not like hugely shitty, but like just enough to make you feel out of place. Just make you like aware of it. Just makes you like aware of it. Yeah, like a lot of check, like are you doing okay? Right, like a lot of that where I'm just like, I know it's just all little reminders. You know what I mean?

Nothing terrible, nothing the worst ever, but like no one's checking in with anybody else, it's just a fallity. Yeah, you wanna be at home in your body, and I feel like that like takes you out of the experience of people like that. Totally, and it reminds you that other people are seeing you first in your body, and I feel like that takes you out of the experience of people like that. And it reminds you that other people are seeing you first through your body, right?

And also just like other people being like, good job! You know what I mean? You're just like, I also don't need that. Pretend like I don't exist, like you do with everybody else. Yeah. Just quietly resent that I have my headphones in. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Judge me for that. Pick a weird hiking beef with me. You should have one of those fucking Bluetooth speakers when you go hiking and then everyone will hate you because of that. They won't hate me because I'm a Bluetooth speaker. They'll hate me because I'm using it to play LMFAO. Those are the only times in nature that I like genuinely consider committing murder. I'm like, well, some of the fucking Bluetooth bigger out here.

As we're talking about consistency and movement, right? And enjoyment of movement, there is a little bit of evidence that shows that the actual process of counting your steps may reduce or eliminate that enjoyment. Oh. I'm sending you a brick and I apologize that it is such a brick. Oh, it's fine. You have to apologize. There you go. All right, this one's pretty big, Aubrey.

It's big, I know, it's not. You know what, you'll mean apology. I do, I did. It doesn't work today. It doesn't work today. Okay. For your health. It's for my health, for my brain health.

When we know that our walking habits are being recorded for instance, we're more likely to walk, but we also take less pleasure in strolling. Duke University professor Jordan Etkin argued that it's because the act of measuring the output makes enjoyable activities feel more like work, which reduces their enjoyment. To test the hypothesis, Etkin coordinated six studies involving tracking various activities such as reading and walking. In one, 95 college students were asked to choose whether or not to wear a pedometer all day. Some could see the step count while others could not.

At the end of the day, they were asked to report how much they enjoyed walking. Those who could see the steps ticking up throughout the day did end up walking more, but reported less enjoyment. The result suggests it can wrote that measurement reduced enjoyment even among people who chose to be measured Which is to say even when we think we want answers the results might make us crabby I relate because I just found out about my 8,000 steps and I'm livid totally and your brain like latches on to it in a way It's like really annoying and doesn't feel good, right? What I have noticed about myself this this is entirely anecdotal, is

that when I got really fixated on 10,000 steps a day, I felt like absolute garbage every day that I fell short. Yeah. It wasn't like the 10,000 steps days, I felt really good about myself for doing a good thing. I felt good, but that was sort of the baseline, right? And if I fell short of that baseline, I felt like I was a failure. I felt good, but that was sort of the baseline, right? And if I fell short of that baseline, I felt like I was a failure and I felt like my health was at stake. Right. Again, if you like tracking, if you feel like it's working for you, great, go for it. Yeah, there are some people that love it. Go to town. Yeah. But if it feels bad to you, that might be worth listening to, right? It might be worth finding something that feels good to you.

The key is setting goals that you can always achieve. I'm gonna give the final word on 10,000 steps to Mike Brannon, who is the National Lead for Physical Activity at Public Health England, who says, quote, there's no health guidance that exists to back it. Oh yeah. Tooth, boom.

To thousand steps. You don't need it! I'm so haunted by learning my steps today, Aubrey. I'm so sorry. I think you can turn it off if you want to turn it off. I would like to turn it off. You don't have to wear that. I don't want to wear that.

Stone around your neck. I don't want to eat thousands steps today. It's bullshit. Everyone knows that I haven't done cocaine and I got 8,000 steps. I don't know what to do with this. How much coke did you get offered? Dude, people were emailing me.

And I'm like, please do not offer me illegal drugs. In writing, on like, you know, Twitter DMs or whatever, we're like, who fucking knows who else can read that? Like, please do not. Do this. I'm sorry. Thank you.