Daily steps and all-cause mortality | Hacker News Reader

Daily steps and all-cause mortality

axios.com

106 pointscwwc172 comments

The gist of this article is that you don't need to absolutely walk 10,000 steps every single day to be healthier. You can get almost all of the benefits of that 10K steps by aiming to walk at least 7k steps.

If that difference in goal-setting is enough to flip the switch for someone who is thinking "ugh I just can't consistently get 10k steps", and they end up frustrated and giving up... to now being like "ok I'll just try to at least get 5-7k steps a day" then that person is likely ending up much healthier than someone who gave up.

If you already walk 10k / day, or have a comprehensive exercise program, you know this (very brief) article is not for you. Let it go.

10.000 is very hard to attain every day. I walk a lot and just get this value in very active days.

Anecdata:

I recently visited Amsterdam with my wife. On the less active days, just leaving our room 3x a day for food and weed put us way over 10k steps every day. We were hitting 30k on our really touristy days. Now I'm back at my house in an American suburb and struggling to get 5k naturally.

From my point of view, the problem is most of the built environment caters toward cars and not enough toward outdoor living space.

The damn 'burbs. Nothing to walk to, everything's been spread way too far apart. Maybe a park or neighborhood pool if you're lucky. Too much non-place taking up space between places is killer. Literally, given heart disease.

You don't need a destination when the walk is the goal.

If you can walk to the places you need to get to, then you don't even need to go out of your way to hit the step goal.

It's a shame that we (Americans) don't build cities this way, instead requiring that we drive everywhere. It's bad for the environment as well as our health.

I can only speak for myself but it's far easier, psychologically, for me to go out and walk somewhere when I have a goal besides just walking. While a destination is not necessary in the strictest sense, not having a reason besides exercise is a substantial barrier.

Yeah but the walk in those environments just sucks. Loud traffic, no sidewalks, nothing to look at. When I visit Canada, I always miss walking in the woods, because the paths just don't exist. In Germany they're literally everywhere.

Working from home I find it nearly impossible. Even using a standing desk, using the bathroom on the other floor instead of the one near me, trying not to ignore my watch when it says to get up and walk, etc... I'll often end up with less than 2k steps.

Take your work meetings on a pair of headphones while dialing in, instead of video conferencing in.

Take a fifteen walk once a day while sorting out your daily schedule, working on a hard problem, etc.

Personally, that cooped up feeling from being stuck inside all day is one of the reasons why I moved out of the city and onto some property. 30m of daily outside chores (work breaks, lunch breaks, replacement for a "commute") and I easily get 10k steps a day.

>Personally, that cooped up feeling from being stuck inside all day is one of the reasons why I moved out of the city and onto some property.

As someone who moved from a city to a rural area over the pandemic and saw their exercise suffer massively, this rings oddly to me. In a city I was getting huge step counts because there were so many places to go, so much to see and do! Leaving the house was immediately rewarding. Out in the boondocks, sure there's plenty of space to walk, but there's nowhere you can feasibly walk to.

That actually helps, thank you. A lot of my meetings lately are non-video so I could easily take those while walking.

I'm working on moving into a city. The plan is to get rid of the car and I think that'll make a huge improvement in health.

The idea is you also have to walk for exercise, not just incidentally. I wfh and aim for two 2-3 mile walks a day and get in about 15000 steps. Takes about 1.5 hours out of my day but I'd just be zoning out watching a screen otherwise.

Buy a collie. They LIVE for walks. Ours goes 3-4 miles a day. She cares about walks more than food. And she derives absolute joy from them. Just walking around new neighborhoods and she looks at me every day with sheer bliss during and after. Very motivating.

Get a dog, 10k becomes very easy when you have to walk the dog a few kilometers every day.

Is this in America? I found it much harder to get in American than I do now that I've moved to Ireland. I walk mostly everywhere (weather permitting) and rarely get below 10k a day. I'm actually closer to 12k a day, and 8 km. On the year so far I'm averaging over 14,400. And I wouldn't say I walk a tremendous amount -- just when I can (though I do enjoy it), sometimes with running in depending on weather and other things.

Funny enough, it's not (just) about the exercise. Walking actually helps pump blood, so you're actually letting your heart rest a bit when you do it.

Plus, like sleep, it's one of those activities that were so constant in our lives that a bunch of processes came to depend on it.

When I was physically frail, walking was the only PE I could bear. It was surprising to see how integrated it is. It helps pump blood very softly. I massages your gut. It's a global exercise, unlike isolated workouts. There's also a mind aspect to wandering.. your imagination walks too, in various directions.

ps: to add some context, I used to be a runner, so when health crashed, my first reaction was to jog to maintain things, but it was too demanding, stationary biking was too focused on legs.. both didn't allow blood to flow everywhere nicely. Too a few hikes only to feel warm blood back into toes and fingers for instance. And even lungs opened better. Since lungs are also linked to blood flow, ensuring a holistic proper circulation probably helped that part too.

> Walking actually helps pump blood, so you're actually letting your heart rest a bit when you do it.

That's surprising, because walking increases heart rate significantly compared to sitting/laying.

Switching from sitting to a nice walk with my elderly parents makes me go from 50-60 BPM to 90+

What kind of rest are you talking about ?

I'm on the phone and honestly too lazy to look for a good primary source, but a google for "walking pumps blood" finds lots of hits, most on calf muscles pumping venous blood.

Also tbh 90+ walking sounds like a warning sign...

90+ while walking is a reasonable heartrate if it's a high pace. For a stroll, then yes it's a sign of poor health.

Getting a dog can be a great way of forcing you into it. I easily surpass this everyday now, when previously I could have been described more as an indoor cat. I can't count how many times I've been stuck on a tough problem during the workday, and then a mid-day walk with the dog clears my mind enough to solve it.

edit: obviously exercise your best judgement if this is appropriate for you, do appropriate research, adopt don't shop etc.

JUST NO. Don't recommend this.

Getting a dog to force yourself to walk is not fair to the dog. Some people will still not walk and the dog will just become a problem.

It is the best when people getting a dog understand what they are getting into. Dogs are a lot of work and expensive.

I think it's something that each person should introspect a bit on. I've been pushing back against getting a dog, because I know I would hate to have to walk it first thing every morning; I don't want to build up resentment towards an animal.

But for other people, it works, it's great, and they form a life-long bond.

I felt the same anxiety about having to walk our dog when we first got it. But it's totally worth it and doesn't feel as a chore. It's time to yourself, to think about things, to wake up, to give you a perfect routine to start the day. I've felt physically better since getting a dog, and they really do fall in love with you, so that connection makes you feel great about yourself. I only advocate for adoption. There are so many dogs that need a loving home.

Yeah getting a dog is a great thing but it's also a living creature that can live for 15 years. People just don't think that far ahead.

I am forever grateful to my dog though. She saved my life after a loved one passed away. Thanks to that dog I meet more people, I have no trouble walking 10k steps a day, I get sunshine, fresh air.

I'm only 5 years in but so far I love it and I have no problem exercising it.

But it has also opened my eyes to how many dog owners there are out there, and how many of them are negligent.

Everyone always jumps down everyone's throats with low effort replies like this.

Nobody is getting a dog simply for exercise. The ROI is terrible in that regard. But the extra nudge to be outdoors that a dog provides is just one of the many factors that adds up to a decision to get one or not.

I find it interesting that from a historical perspective exercise for the sole purpose to stay healthy is a relatively recent phenomenon. Traditionally, exercise was considered part of training - whether that of a soldier, an athlete, etc.

Usually you worked until you were exhausted. or else, No?

Yes, hard physical work was the main form of "exercise" for most people.

Or you worked until you were told you were done for the day, and no sooner.

In the past most people would have exceeded 7,000 just living

In pre modern times, being unhealthy was likely to kill you or starve you.

It isn't that recent. The ancient greeks lifted weights and ran for general health. We know the Olmecs played ball games and one imagines they observed the health effects of staying active. Boxing is at least 5k years old. There are 15k year old cave paintings of wrestling. The Maasai have intentionally practiced high jumping for ? centuries. One can imagine that early persistence hunters probably ran competitively, as their modern counterparts do. A lot of these activities had non-health purposes but it isn't a stretch to think people in the distant past associated activity with health.

It's being sedentary that's quite recent.

In my view, failing to experience training your body and seeing yourself improve is analogous to never finding love, never enjoying art, never enjoying learning. It's a part of the human experience we've evolved dedicated pathways to make us enjoy and opting out of that is a crying shame.

If you are wondering where the original 10,000 steps per day day came from-- it was a nice round number promoted by a pedometer company to sell the devices.

https://www.popsci.com/story/health/10000-steps-evidence-stu...

As long distance runner who used to track my steps closely, I agree 7,000-8,000 is a good daily goal.

There's a reason "walk till you rollover" was a slogan! My pedometer only went to 9999

Even more amazingly, it's likely a marketing thing, using the 万 (man) character, which looks like someone walking and happens to be 10,000.

Is there an actual source for this or is it just the article author's speculation?

I don’t know how to weigh the two pieces against each other (I have not dug in to the details), but here’s an alternate meta-analysis that suggests reductions in all-cause mortality continue past 10,000 daily steps: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/research-spotlight-walking....

Btw: the discussion here suggests some reasons to believe there’s a causal connection, and it’s only partially a matter of “health problems might reduce the amount people walk.”

At a bare minimum, otherwise healthy old people can fall and break a bone, which will often be the beginning of the end for them. Getting aerobic exercise reduces the chance of that happening since your muscles are more robust.

I used to have a 10,000/day goal. Recently switched to 7,000.

I still regularly exceed that goal but realized not falling below 7,000 was important on days I wasn’t able to move as much. Interesting to see the threshold I chose has research backing it. (Though maybe I should be at 8,000-9,000 since I’m younger)

I start every day with a 2-mile walk. That’s about 5K steps. Been doing that for years.

Been thinking of extending it, maybe by a mile. That would do it.

Kind of curious about this (and this is something mentioned in the study itself). It seems that the observations about step count are just correlational and not causal.

I wonder if the step count thing correlates with some other factors that are more causal? Like in the case of older adults, maybe those who walked more didn't have other physical conditions correlated with earlier mortality that prevented them from doing so?

Also the meta-analysis linked to doesn't seem to say that mortality risk is _reduced_ by _increasing_ step count (implying an intervention) as the article implies. Rather just that people with the higher step counts had lower mortality rates.

I don't think there's anything uniquely beneficial about walking in comparison to other types of aerobic activity (running, biking, playing a sport) - though it may be more accessible/enjoyable which is important when considering adherence.

It makes sense that mortality risk would be reduced by increasing step count, as that means increasing aerobic activity.

See the 2019 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans: https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Physical_Acti... Page 35 specifically outlines their justification for the recommendation of 150-300 minutes of moderate physical activity per week for adults.

I will add that something like 80-90% of Americans don't meet the physical activity guidelines (150-300min moderate intensity aerobics + 2 days of muscle strengthening activities for major muscle groups, per week) - walking is one of the most accessible activities and is fairly "easy", so I think this is useful as a blanket recommendation.

The glaring problem with the measured benefit here is that walking ability is a great determinant of overall health. Any senior able to walk 3k is already well above the others in health outcomes, and less likely to die than the rest, regardless if they walk 3k everyday or not. It's like claiming driving a Ferrari will make you wealthy, because you observed that Ferrari owners paid off the biggest speeding tickets. Then advising people to buy a Ferrari to be wealthy.

The correlation vs. causality is, as always in medicine, a huge question, but aside from cardiovascular health improvements, I can see at least two other plausible causal chains. Possibly all three work at the same time:

Causal chain 2: fewer falls in older people. Breaking your hip is about as deadly as having progressing cancer in old age. Sedentary older people will lose bone density, muscle mass and sense of balance, thus being more prone to dangerous falls.

Causal chain 3: training for the immune system. If you walk so many steps every day, you almost certainly walk outside, too. Which means exposing yourself to heat, cold, frost, sleet, sun, rain, wind etc. all year round. That may be a good training for your immune system.

So, at 100 steps per minute at a brisk pace, 7,000 steps is only an hour and 10 minutes of walking, minimum, per day. This is the recommendation? That we all spend two hours a day walking? Such practical health advice for today's modern world.

For millions of years, we didn't have cars. If you didn't have your car, you'd easily take that many steps every day. We're lazy.

I find that car-driven, suburban culture makes this difficult to achieve. I have lived in many different environments: cities, villages, suburbs, even farms. Only in the suburbs was walking actually disincentivized. A comfortable house with a big TV and urban sprawl that made it impossible to walk anywhere useful just leads to a lot of sitting either on the couch or in the car. The ability to walk places whether it be your job or the supermarket makes such a huge, huge difference for a person's health.

You can walk around your block with your dog, from the back of the parking lot to the shop, and around your big house.

TV doesn't make walking impossible.

Obviously not. But needed/not needing to walk are different. It's a lot easier to get 7000 steps in when you need to.

The mention of TV doesn't matter here, it's that you are forced to drive to accomplish basic tasks. Yes, you can walk in the neighborhood when you get home, although a lack of sidewalks may discourage even that in some places. But you have less time due to driving your errands and exercise is not built into your day as it would be walking or biking was the transportation.

Parking at the back of parking lot is a good idea if your best option is driving to the store.

and if you still need entertainment just listen to a podcast or audiobook while you walk.

They didn't say walking was "impossible" just "disincentivized" which I'd have to agree with. A majority of the housing developments I've seen go up in the Bay Area put you several miles, at least, from any shopping. Your friends probably live way farther away than that. So you've got nowhere to "walk to", for a purpose. Sure it's probably walkable in so far as their are slow streets and sidewalks - but you have to walk for the sake of walking vs walking for destination hence "disincentivized".

I go for a 30mn walk everyday in my neighborhood in the 'Burbs. It totally can be done, but just in the modern "go go go" society. Most people want walking to at least be a means to an end. And yes, I mean a directly "right here, right now" end, not "being health".

"Possible" and "what you'll in fact see across a population in two different environments, all else being equal" are different things.

Living some places means you'd have to struggle to stay under 5k steps per day. Living others means you have to go out of your way to break 5k steps.

You are right. Obesity maps look like the inverse of walkability maps.

That seems strange to me, obesity is most common amongst Blacks and Hispanics, with Whites (and especially Asians) less likely to be obese. Blacks are far more likely to live in major cities than Whites.

The relationship might be different in urban areas.

How far are the usual shops ? I cope with biking. I walk at times but the time required is prohibitive.

> made it impossible to walk anywhere useful

You can literally go anywhere if you want to, just for the sake of walking ... and without it being useful in a sense that you go to your workplace or shopping groceries. I hear the phrase "to take a walk" used fairly often to describe this weird phenomenon.

This is true, but you end up walking for about an hour and fifteen minutes a day to walk 7,000-10,000 steps.

If you do this on top of drives to the store/work that’s a lot of your day.

Whereas if your errands or commute involve walking then you only need to take a short walk to walk enough.

The premise of the original comment was that not having a useful place to walk to "just leads to a lot of sitting on the couch" which isn't really helping with getting errands done either, as you imply. Instead of sitting a lot ... just walk a lot. My comment about taking a walk being a "weird phenomenon" was intended to be some sort of joke, but I start to understand where your mindset is coming from ...

Why misquote when it's easy to copy/paste what they actually wrote:

> just leads to a lot of sitting either on the couch or in the car

You left out "either" and "or in the car" which changes the sense quite a bit.

I was not misquoting. I simply quoted what was relevant within context, which is common practice. But yeah, I guess your insinuation is easier to formulate than to justify how sitting on the couch gets your errands done or why exactly it would keep you from doing a walk, which was the original statement.

I have found 2 strategies for mixing it in

1) Park farther away or do not drive between stores if they're < 0.5 mile away

2) remember to not let the measure become the goal -- I try to look for ways to make tasks more laborious ... Clean your house by hand (instead of roomba or maid), use a hand rake instead of a leaf blower, knead dough instead of buying bread -- etc. This is the kind of physical activity that will help move the needle without necessarily registering on a pedometer

FWIW, 7000 steps works out very close to 5km (3.11mi) for a typical male stride. About 10% less distance for female. I consider myself pretty active, running at least 6.5km (4mi) five days a week, and I average around 8000 steps/day (including rest days). So yes, 7000 steps per day might do a lot of good, but it's also enough effort that most people will have to spend non-trivial time working up to it.

Getting 7k steps while working from home +/- bad weather may not be possible every day.

I just got a cheap rowing machine in my home office and I take short, 5mins or less breaks during the day. Rowing is not just more intense but also uses a bunch of muscles getting weaker and weaker in sedentary people.

So walk 7k if this works for you. Get some exercise machine if almost 2hrs walking per day seems too demanding.

In my teens, the family went to visit our backyard neighbors for a dinner. Normally we kids just hopped over the fence, but for this occasion, we were all bundled in the car.

The only adults seen walking in our suburban neighborhood were the maids.

A big chunk of global warming comes from the North American suburb.

Measuring time is more convenient than counting steps or calculating distance, in my experience.

A normal pace for me is about 100 steps per minute. It’s a convenient way to estimate steps taken.

Presumably depends on whether you have a device to do it for you. Since I wear a watch anyway, it’s dramatically simpler to let it count steps for me.

Steps are more convenient if you own a smartwatch or health-monitoring watch.

Most people don't ("but I never see anyone without one!" yes, you live in a tech-hub bubble), so yeah, time would be easier.

How far is 7k steps for an adult, roughly? 2km?

Edit: From what I'm reading, about 4-6km, or 2.5-3.75 miles. That's a pretty decent walk. Guess I gotta do more.

I think it's much more than that - around 5-6km. But take into consideration all the steps you do at home or office just walking around. You don't just need to walk on purpose.

For me (5'9") it'd be about 5.5km. 2k steps is about a mile

I'm 5'9"/175cm and I generally hit 10k steps at around the 7.5km mark, so for me 7k steps would be just over 5km.

I’m 6’1 and my iPhone pedometer says I get about 1000 steps per kilometer.

It's not about the steps. If you take 7k steps waking to and from your desk all day it's not really that helpful. If you take a 5-10 min fast walk back home it's already better. Don't overthink it, any movement is good, if your heart rate goes up it's better. If you don't manage more than 5 minutes per day it's still enormously helpful for your body.

Do you have a source on your claim that 7k of sporadic and slow walking is categorically worse than a 5 minute walk that is fast?

I think that is a rather counter intuitive claim, 7k steps is about 5-6km whereas a 5 minute walk even at blistering pace is an order of magnitude less.

All doctors I talked to the last 5 years have said to concentrate on getting heart rate up. If you for some reason can't manage 30 minutes, maybe you have knee problems or whatever, 5 minutes now and then is better than nothing. But the most important thing is to get your heart rate up, not how many steps you take.

The recommendation in Sweden is to take 30 minutes fast walk. That has been converted to 10k steps here to sell step counters I guess.

Quick google: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42864061

I've never understood the fascination with counting 'steps' - a smaller person will cover 10,000 steps before a taller person, due to stride length.

Why not just tell people get 30mins (or whatever today's recommendation is) of brisk walking in? They wouldn't even need to buy a pedometer/smart watch!

Some people needs to be gamed to do something. I find turfgame.com to be my carrot to get out more but that one is best in Sweden and as long as you live in a halfway big town. You take zones, your neighbour blocks you and takes them back.

Others are happy when they can compare number of steps to their co-workers I guess.

I love this concept! Sadly, no one plays it near me

It's an old game so might need some fresh blood. You could do some flyers, there are some on the forum to download and print :-)

I usually stop and talk to people when they look at me funnily. You do look funny when you come on the bicycle - stopping in the middle of nowhere, stand still for 15 seconds and then run off again. They are all curios what you are doing and how it works, especially older people and some even start turfing after a while.

I did play a game similar to that called Ingress (I think it was by Google, and they were presumably collecting GPS data to improve their pedestrian mapping).

I'll check out turfgame when I get a chance!

Respectfully - Ingress is by Niantic, the same company behind Pokemon Go (and maybe that Harry Potter version?). They share data between the two games - points of interest tagged in Ingress still usually map to Pokemon Go Stops and Gyms; energy (can't remember the name for it - the golden energy you collect by walking near) usually maps to individual Pokemon spawn locations. They get their raw map data from OpenStreetMap; I'm not sure if anyone knows where they get their specific data on user/internet use density which informs some of their map features, but Google GPS analytics is probably a fair guess.

I used to play a lot of Pokemon Go, but plenty of things made me drift away; as for motivating me to walk, it kinda helped, but really just ended up with a lot of "walk 300 ft. (~100m), stop and stare/tap at your phone for several minutes", vs. the more enjoyable and directly beneficial (towards distance/time/step goals) uninterrupted pattern.

It can be a bit scarse on zones so if you can't find any zones in your area, suggest some in the app and then go to the forum and lobby for them [1]. The name of the area and why it's a nice place for a zone is a good start. The zone makers are all working on spare time so can take a while until you get your zones but they will add them sooner if they are easy to find :-)

[1] https://maqqansturf.wordpress.com/2020/05/29/zonemaking-2-0/

Because it's a situation where an approximate measure works better than a precise, but fussy one. Timing your walking is not exactly comfortable, while pedometers... just work.

(One could also make a point that effort is also relative to size, but truth be told it really doesn't matter - just having a rough idea that you're moving is ok)

But then the article starts debating the fussy details about 7k vs 9k vs 10k steps. Generalising, without strong reason to believe otherwise, any western adult would probably benefit from more activity regardless. Don't scare off baby steps by making 10k a quantum goal but also don't placate minimal effort by applauding 7k - or having walking as your only source of exercise.

For the same reason you do n reps in anything fitness related. Running for 30 minutes is going to be healthy, no doubt about that, but someone getting in 6000 repetitions is going to be more healthy than someone getting in 4000.

For folks like my wife and me, who are really bad about regular exercise and have lots of competing demands, I‘ve seen step tracking actually be the prompt for that 30m walk. Seeing a particularly low step count later in the day has often been a motivator to get out.

pedometer is easier than stopping/starting timer.

the phone’s built in pedometer replaced run trackers like Strava for me for this reason. i found “start run” too overt. now i’ll go on a spontaneous detour just to collect a few more steps.

I think there's value in game-ifying activity (makes it more fun). Also consider that this is a blanket recommendation considering ~80-90% of Americans don't meet leisure activity guidelines. I agree that the time should also be presented - and steps may be useful too to help people realize that it can be distributed throughout the day and doesn't HAVE to be a time consuming/strenuous 30 minute bout to see significant benefits.

It's a good cumulative measure of activity that might be spread over a day. Living in a dense urban area I can easily accumulate 5000 steps just running a few errands. It's a bit harder to track and add up segments of "moving time."

Why not just like, exercise properly? Walking is the absolute bare minimum, if you don't walk every day you're not going to just be a bit unfit, you're going to be hilariously unhealthy.

Stats like 65% of Americans being overweight make so much sense in this context. Develop a relationship with your body, it's not hard and you'll reap the rewards throughout life. Better _everything_.

Walking to and from the platform of my nearest tube station is about 2.5k steps....

Yeah I'm appalled the studies are fuel for excuses to exercise less. Maybe in 20 years, pop sci will figure out you can even do pushups and pullups - once a week if you feel like it.

Walking is very underrated. Most of the world is not overweight precisely because they have to walk place to place instead of being cooped up in their suburban home or skyscraper apartment where delivery just works better. Those 300-700 extra calories from daily walking activities and carrying things around add up very quickly. In terms of staying fit, walking is much more beneficial than push-ups or pull-ups. Not that you shouldn't do the latter, but many people have to make exercising a habit, and if our goal is weight loss they're more likely to do that with dedicated walking than with pull-ups or push-ups. It's just too hard to do consistently even with 100-push up programs.

Obesity is yet another problem either created by, or exacerbated by our absolutely abhorrent urban planning and architecture practices.

Skyscraper apartments are extremely low portion of units, and anyway don't prevent walking. They enable the density that makes walking efficient.

They don't prevent walking any more than living in the suburbs do. But there's a slight barrier waiting for an elevator, or walking down stairs, etc. There's a reason that grocery delivery services sprang up in places like NYC first and most prominently instead of, say, Pittsburgh.

While they enable density, certainly better than the suburbs do, they're not a great solution. For large cities you want to look at a city like Paris (Ignoring the central business district which is set aside like an upset child that needs to think about what they've done) for even better and more appropriate density.

I think often times people assume more skyscrapers == more density therefore good. But I think that level of density isn't healthy either, it's just more healthy in comparison to the abysmal and wasteful suburbs.

Also your statement is a bit contradictory. If the skyscraper apartments are an extremely low portion of units, how do they enable density if there are so few?

Somewhat nit-picky, but I would push back against the simplicity of a few things you described. Overweight/obesity is influenced by numerous factors - exercise being one of them. In general, exercise has been shown to be a far less effective factor in controlling weight when compared to diet, but that's not to say exercise isn't important to your weight/health, because it is VERY important. I would say most of the world isn't obese because their food environment combined with biological/psychological/social factors is different than that of the US, which seems to be conducive to the development of obesity.

I agree that habit forming is very difficult - and specifically that, given somebody doing no activity, starting them with walking/aerobics vs a relatively specific/strenuous exercise like pullups is a good idea.

I think obesity is influenced by urban planning - in the context that obesity is influenced by many environmental factors. Like the US's obsession with car-sprawl at the expense of integrating activities like walking/cycling into one's daily life.

You should read about some of Herman Pontzer's research: https://dupri.duke.edu/news-events/news/herman-pontzer-expla... Specifically, that doing more physical activity doesn't mean you "burn more calories". You may also find his research on metabolism interesting: https://today.duke.edu/2021/08/metabolism-changes-age-just-n... (Age 20-60, it doesn't change much at all)

I agree completely, and thanks for sharing your thoughts and links here.

It's a feedback loop, though.

If you spend a day inside or doing sedentary activities then you're more likely to reach for crap food. If you're in touch with your body, even if you're doing something like a weightlifters' dirty bulk you're probably at least targeting the correct macronutrients.

Well, the other option is that people see sky-high exercise targets (from their POV) and not even get started. Yes, you need exercise, but people can't simply carve out three hours of their day twice a week to go to the gym and if you start with that expectation, most people simply won't. Walking 30 minutes is far more doable and proving that this already gives a benefit is not a bad thing.

People will get in shape ricky tick as you forbid them health insurance or fat tax them. Humans have no natural predator, no forced adaptations and selections - we must invent such.

The fat people with no health insurance paying alcohol and cigarette tax disprove this absurd claim.

You think people like being unable to control their body?

Being fat is already quite expensive and literally kills you in the long run, plus it makes finding a partner for reproduction arguably a lot harder. Next to all the moral problems your suggestions would bring, it already looks like it doesn't work.

> People will get in shape ricky tick as you forbid them health insurance or fat tax them

Increasing sin taxes (alcohol and cigarettes) and raising insurance rates on those who choose to overindulge on those aren't effective so this wouldn't be either. Forbidding people health insurance because they're not "in shape" just feels wrong and a pathway to eugenics imo

>Forbidding people health insurance because they're not "in shape" just feels wrong and a pathway to eugenics imo

And besides that, in countries where health insurance is to some extent or entirely public, you don't tend to see a rise in rates since health care is considered a kind of right.

It is eugenics. Obesity is degeneracy in the most dictionary non-emotional sense of the word. It has no benefits and should be rooted. In the jungle, people with stomachs too big would never have lived to reproduce or take care of offspring anyway - either by dying of hunger or being killed for their dead weight appetite.

> forbid them health insurance or fat tax them

Yeah, right after we yank insurance for anyone who refuses to get vaccinated. Or is the heavy hand of authoritarianism (and the sneakier one of eugenics) only welcome when it falls on Other People?

Six hours a week of exercise is sky-high, but 40-60 hours a week of work isn't, right?

In my opinion a lot of people would be served well by holistically thinking about what they're doing here on this planet.

I can't help but feel like this is a desperate attempt to get some adults to do just any form of exercise.

It might be: 80-90% of Americans don't meet the minimum physical activity guidelines as outlined here: https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Physical_Acti... There are enormous health benefits to be had by small incremental increases in aerobic/strength activities.

I'd challenge you to square your statement that "it's not hard" with the fact that 65%+ of the US population is overweight.

These people are not only unconditioned and unmotivated, they are usually malconditioned and malmotivated. I'm tired of hearing overcomplicated esoterica such as "detox", "keto", and "fasting". Just eat 25% fewer calories than TDEE for 3 months.

lol just spend less money then you earn

just listen before you talk

just breath before you send that email

Just just just

We are humans just anything is hard and lacking compassion isn’t helping

y u not just have compassion?

I see where you're coming from. Following a diet is a psychological challenge, not a physiological one. As such, hundreds of millions of religious people have no trouble following strict diets their whole lives for no more than to appease a deity - something greater than us which gives us purpose. I'm following lent as we speak. Are you less than a middle eastern child, that you cannot follow a basic ritual? Are you less than a neanderthal, that your two bare hands are not enough or sufficient to feed you?

being compared to neanderthal is shame based compliance

so many folks don’t try because they feel bad.

the key isn’t to up the shame, it’s to show how even a little bit can help.

encourage people to walk more today than yesterday, make one healthy food substitution. small baby steps with encouragement makes people generally happier and less likely to shame binge. Or give up.

you can white knuckle this stuff or find love and enjoy the journey.

What’s more sustainable?

The thing you're railing up against (and others on the flip side of the coin) is simplicity of advice vs ease of actualizing

"Just eat 80% of TDEE" is easy advice for someone who only has attention span for "quick tips" or wants it to sound easy.

"spend 6 weeks attempting to eat at maintenance until the scale stops moving, and use this formula to calculate what delta from TDEE is, before then making any changes to diet. Then once you're ready to start making changes to your diet remember two things increase the volume and make it permanently sustainable. Some examples are almond milk replaces full fat milk, or whole unprocessed fruit replaces sugary things, replace excess grains with leafy greens, choose lower fat meats like chicken/turkey breast, white fish or shrimp, over fatty meats like pork ribs or 85% fat ground beef. At most lose 1% of body weight per week, keep tracking everything you eat so you know the calories you ate and keep using the delta formula to recalculate the calories you should eat this week cause the TDEE is going to literally change every day but we'll settle for recalculating each week. "

see how complex that gets? People's eyes glaze over. There's a balance between good advice being short, and good advice being nuanced enough.

how is walk more today than yesterday complex?

buy Apple Watch it tracks it all for you.

switch 2% for whole milk.

Do it for a week. Then do it again the following week. In 12 weeks tell them you should start to see changes and not before.

right expectations is Key.

Any advice of the form "just do X for Y months" is doomed to fail. The right advice is always "do X for the rest of your life".

Many people are overweight because their sense of hunger is poorly calibrated. To overcome that, they need to change something permanently. They need changes in their lives that help them to stay at a healthy weight without being hungry for the rest of their lives.

Agree, but sometimes a radical temporary change can be a catalyst.

This is a gross oversimplification of the numerous biological, psychological, and social factors that contribute to overweight/obesity.

Yes, the common pathway is energy imbalance, but the implication that "fixing" that is in the realm of basic human choice is disrespectful.

Consider that obesity is heavily influenced by your food environment, genes, and lifelong habits. Do any of those things sound easy to change?

Your obesity is influenced only by your food intake. Your calorie delta. I don't know how else to put it. The math is clear.

I agree with you - that was the "common pathway" comment.

I am interested in the complicated part, which is why that delta exists, and how to actually do something about it. You implied in another comment that following a diet is a solution. I think you should acknowledge how disingenuous this comes across given that doesn't work for millions of people. I think other commenters have gotten this across: how simple your response sounds compared to what it actually takes to "follow a diet" for the rest of your life. Do you tell people with high blood pressure to "just relax"?

Just imagine your grandparents exercising. No, you just need them to get to walk. It’s absolutely detrimental to their health and living. No one needs exercise for living, everyone needs daily walks for living. It resets the brain, you see more than four walls, you feel the breeze, your joints work, your brain is refreshed. Not more than that is needed for life.

Well, I don't know about yours, but my grandparents have heart disease.

>> Walking to and from the platform of my nearest tube station is about 2.5k steps....

There are no side walks where I live. The roads have 55mph speed limits and are lined with drainage ditches even if I wanted to walk them. Working from home, I might get ~900 "organic" steps/day unless I go somewhere explicitly to walk (15+ minute drive each way). It's a structural issue more than personal choice

Ride a bicycle for 3x the distance in high gears.

I’m a very fast and experienced cyclist — and riding on 55mph roads is very, very uncomfortable.

There better be BIG shoulders or I'm not doing it. Too many great cyclists have lost their lives on the narrow shoulder of a highway.

> There are no side walks where I live. The roads have 55mph speed limits and are lined with drainage ditches

This doesn't sound very bike-able at all

Or get an ebike. Mod it so it can pace cars. Add even higher gears so you can exercise on it.

An ebike that goes 55mph is an electric motorcycle.

I was thinking more 50km/hr. That will pace cars on residential streets which can be enough to get around for many types of trips, still safe, and has a chance of flying under the radar of most authorities.

> There are no side walks where I live. The roads have 55mph speed limits and are lined with drainage ditches

This was my walking commute to first grade at 7 years old in somewhat rural Slovenia. I believe in you.

edit: okay I guess the speed limit was 60kph for the most part because that was the default back then for named towns

What about standing desk with a treadmill or a home gym? Do you have a yard you can walk in, natural trails within walking distance or is it literally impossible to walk outside your front door? Not trying to be snarky, I'm genuinely curious what the layout of your community is like.

That sucks. Do you have room for a treadmill? You can usually find them used pretty cheap and for just walking, almost any treadmill will do. At walking speeds, it's easy to read, listen to music, or watch a show/movie at the same time.

I seem to have this debate every three days on HN. I'm shocked that a tech-savvy, self-motivated group of "hackers" don't find this a complete and utter no-go. How is your hair not on fire trying to get out of the hellhole where even bloody walking is not possible?! Why is it that you're not spending every minute trying to move to Zurich, or Vancouver, or Amsterdam, or whatever? How are people OK with spending a lifie not being able to walk? I can only think that people are so attached to their job or their family, that the phrase "quality of life" never crosses their mind.

Well, if you start from the position that rural living is a hellhole, I don't know what to tell you buddy. Plenty of people enjoy it just fine, just different costs and benefits

If someone tells me there is nowhere they can walk in the rural countryside, I'd laugh my way right off my chair.

I exercise despite the cars and their pollution, the junkies in the park, the gangs who shoot people, and the government that in the last two years said stay inside.

But I can see why people are reluctant to go out and get some exercise from their boxes in the sky, especially when it’s cold out!

I simply stopped taking the elevator when I worked on the ninth floor.

Some of us don't live in third world countries like where ever it is you are where you need to walk places.

It's not the point - your body is built to walk. There are so many things that go wrong when you cease to walk: loss of core strength which results in a propensity to herniated discs and other spinal/neurological problems, circulatory issues due to the venous pumps of your calf muscles not working as they were designed, etc...

The human body is literally designed for walking - not running, cycling, swimming, lifting - walking.

wtf does this mean? the human body is absolutely designed to run

it is not designed at all. we evolved doing a lot of both - but throughout history, people have walked a _lot_ more than people have ran.

perhaps parent commenter meant this? https://martinfowler.com/tags/evolutionary%20design.html

It's become pretty boring to see so many HN threads devolve into people nitpicking a single word in their post.

well despite that fact that nothing about humans was "designed", humans are quite literally the best long distance runners in the animal kingdom. Its one of the only physical things we are actually elite at. We are weak and slow but we can run forever.

most early hunting was by running animals to exhaustion. The fact we are bipedal and have very efficient heat dispersion (sweating) all point to the fact that we were meant to run.

> most early hunting was by running animals to exhaustion.

Seems like a poor way to go about it to be honest. Sure you just ran that gazelle down over 20 miles, but now you're 20 miles from home and have to carry a gazelle back.

before we developed tools, what would you suggest as a better way to catch a gazelle that can sprint at 50+ mph?

I'm not sure what you're trying to imply by the last statement. "Designed" is a pretty loose term here.

Running, cycling, swimming, lifting, and walking are all safe activities. The human body is extremely adaptable, and we do not need to encourage even more fear of movement.

See the 2019 physical activity guidelines for Americans (the minimums of which 80-90% of us don't meet) for evidence based recommendations: https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Physical_Acti...

> Why not just like, exercise properly?

Why do you think walking isn't exercising properly? Exercise doesn't have to be weight-bearing or high-intensity to count. In fact, since those types of exercise increase injury risk, moderate exercise is probably better. Study after study after study - which I can cite just as soon as you cite some of your own - shows that walking or similar exercise captures practically all of health benefits without any risk (even to those who are older or who have already had heart attacks etc.) and with more likelihood of people sticking to it. Why go harder? And yes, when you dismiss walking as not exercising properly you are suggesting that.

> Why go harder?

Because there's a dose dependent relationship between aerobic activity and positive health outcomes - the more you do, the more you get - and aerobics that are more intense than walking provide more "bang for back". And because there are unique benefits to weight bearing activities. Strengthening your muscles, for example, improves your ability to handle your body in space and reduces risk of falls, in addition to increasing bone density, which reduces severity of such injury from any falls. Sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass) is associated with significantly worse mortality when in the hospital. Having strength and confidence in your body improves quality of life through enabling you to keep up with physical tasks as you age. Reinforcing that movement is safe, especially loaded movement, is associated with better pain outcomes.

Exercise does not have to be weight bearing or high-intensity. But if you are able and interested in your health, you should do those things. I only agree with your implication re:injury risk in the sense that lifting something up is inherently more dangerous than not because there is more load involved. This is a nonsensical reason to only walk, as humans adapt well to loading given reasonable fatigue and load management. Most people should not be concerned about any increased injury risk - but you should always consult with your doctor.

See the physical activity guidelines for Americans: https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Physical_Acti... (There's lots of evidence provided).

Those are all good things. There are additional benefits to getting more or different exercise. But the point remains that walking is real exercise, it's more than most people get, and dismissing it as "not real" is privileged gym-rat bullshit. Even your own citation emphasizes aerobic activity - leading with moderate aerobic activity such as walking - over strengthening exercises. You yourself have said in another comment:

> There are enormous health benefits to be had by small incremental increases

Yes incremental. The more people pile on about doing even more before it "counts" as "real exercise" the fewer people will do even the first part. Not everyone is in their twenties, or built exercise into their lifestyle when they were. I myself started a bit late, and it's only because I'm more stubborn than most that I've kept progressing. People need encouragement, goals they can meet and victories they can savor, not "everyone should exercise the way I do" from people in more favorable circumstances. Ten people sticking with a modest exercise program is better than one person sticking with a more aggressive one, as far as public health is concerned.

I agree with everything you said. I don't agree with the "real exercise" mantra for the reasons you've stated (creating unnecessary barriers and stigma). I was probably reading into the details too much. Mainly I want people to understand that loading is safe - and encouraged - even when you're older. Load management and fatigue are essential and should not be taken for granted.

False advertising, it's apparently 7k steps per day. There goes my chance for salvation. opens another bag of chips

I’m very doubtful of these numbers.

Everyone is different, there’s no doubt that walking is beneficial for your health and you should try to walk a bit every day.

But I wouldn’t try to hit a daily goal, or certain amount of minutes. Just walk for how long you feel like

Hitting a daily goal means more walking for many. "walk for however long you feel like" means nothing... having 3k steps on the pedometer, while the goal is eg. 10k steps (or 7k i guess now) means many people will go for a walk, which is good for them.

I know it's just gamification of exercise, but if it works, I'm all for it.

I have a pedometer app on my mobile. When I go for a walk I try to walk further than the weekly and monthly averages. I turn it into a silly sort of a game. So instead of trying to beat some externally imposed limit I just try to be a little better than myself. So far it's working and I generally do more than 6 ksteps per day.

You should try to walk a lot every day, not just what you "feel like". 7k steps is on the low side.

Only if your step counts are drastically inflated. I've seen Fitbit users get hundreds of "steps" per hour sitting at their desks. Seven thousand real steps a day is about 5km, which is more than even smug twenty-somethings typically manage.

Fitness trackers are often quite terrible at counting both steps and heart rate. This means two very important metrics for tracking fitness can't be trusted completely. That said, they can at least give you a rough estimate as to where things stand, so they aren't completely useless.

Advice like this isn't for instrinctly motivated people that would walk as much as they feel like anyways.

This is for the vast majority of America where a 6 block trip to the corner store is considered driving distance.

If I didn't make it a 100% conscious "chore" to do every day when I lived in the suburbs, it was quite easy to go an entire week without walking more than a few hundred outdoor feet in total.

In the city it's far more likely I'll be walking to get something done anyways, so it's easy to take the long way home for some extra steps if I've been in front of a screen too long lately.

No, this isn't like thirst.

Walking is the easiest most consistent weight loss method. The do Physical Activity Thing X times and metrics like BMI are aggregates for the population meant as generic advice (some doctors can't do math without a calculator sadly).

The gist of the advice is always to figure out your base metabolic rate and roughly how many calories you lose per steps/hours of walking. You can derive this experimentally for yourself by doing and eating the exact same thing for a few days in a row. You just need a good enough scale and a spreadsheet.

This drifts over time with your age and weight, so repeat the experiment occasionally. 5000-10,000 is the target range, maybe that's how they got 7k.

It doesn't matter if you hit your number daily or average it out weekly, as long as you get your steps in the calorie deficit occurs.

It takes a phenomenal amount of exercise to be equal to reducing food intake. Reducing cardio to a weight loss method means that people who are unfit but not overweight or strong but relatively sedentary think that they don't need to do it for their health. Then they die of heart disease.

I don't disagree?

Exercise is best used to build muscle mass and is not very effective if the goal is a caloric deficit. You could run, some people love doing that, but most aren't able to do this consistently enough - and the more overweight the more injury prone.

Walking works just as well as high intensity cardio it just takes proportionally longer. You're paying for your extra weight and lethargy with time. However, everybody (who can exercise at least) can do it, and it works.

Going from sedentary straight to beast mode rarely works.

And most people are in fact overweight. Walk for a month or two to shed weight, improve mood, and form good habits - then progress onwards from there. Maybe throw in pushup sets every mile or get down to the park with the bars, 'etc.

I hate this "steps" bullshit. Imagine writing this whole article and not once saying what that means in terms of miles or kilometers.

It’s not about distance, it’s about movement repetitions. Imagine having such strong opinions on matters outside of your expertise.

Well, every person with a cell phone can open it right now during the article and see how many steps they've taken on average in the last week, month, etc.

So it's not like it's absolutely meaningless

Steps seems like a reasonable measure though? It seems reasonable that each step results in similar exertion for any person. Distance, OTOH, would be affected by the length of your stride (-> your height), so it might be a worse measure.

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