“10,000 steps a day? Might as well pick daisies”: Sports doctor resets pedometers

But, good heavens, who decreed that walking 10,000 steps a day was beneficial for health? Who invented this figure endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO)? Dr. Daulouède chokes with laughter: "Japanese researchers, during a completely biased study, commissioned in the 1960s in Japan by pedometer sellers, established this 10,000-step rule. It is therefore false. It applied to an Asian phenotype, not our Caucasian phenotype. It corresponds to approximately one and a half hours of walking, or 7 kilometers. Over the years, and even more so in the last five years, this pseudo-rule of 10,000 steps has been used to sell apps on our phones and pedometers on smartwatches: in health, we call this a "gold" effect. But understand, it's not so much the number of steps that counts as how we take them. »

The 10,000 steps are a goal that has become part of today's customs, especially among urban dwellers, and especially young retirees. However, a 2021 study, cited by the American consumer magazine " Consumer Reports" , estimates that the benefits on waist size, cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar are only palpable from 15,000 steps per day. Damn. "Because," comments Dr. Daulouède, "walking is a human characteristic, a basic, fundamental function. This 10,000 steps rule, which is not one, should be associated with walking behavior. Let me explain: 10,000 steps without a cane, walking briskly to climb the Rhune in the Basque Country, has nothing to do with 10,000 steps, even without a cane, to walk Mirza... The physical effort is not the same. So, the notion of 10,000 steps should not be used as a benchmark, despite the success of smartwatches. Walking slowly does not have much effect on physical health.

“People who walk are smarter than those who don’t, but physically it’s another story!”

But it has some on mental, psychological, and philosophical health. Thus spoke Nietzsche: "Only thoughts that come while walking are worth anything." And also Kierkegaard, also a great walker before the Eternal: "Above all, do not lose the desire to walk. For me, every day, walking gives me my daily well-being, and keeps me away from illness, my best thoughts have come while walking, and I know of no thought so heavy that one cannot move away from it in great strides." Plato and Aristotle philosophized while walking. With or without Mirza. And Dr. Christian Daulouède himself does not spit on the simple pleasure of walking and its soothing virtues. "It's true, people who walk are more intelligent than those who don't walk, but for the physical," he says, "that's another story!"

Once this disappointing observation is made, the doctor offers some solutions. "If we want to improve our health and physical condition, lose weight, it's better to abandon the pace of the Sunday walker and prefer the pace of the hunter, a fast walk that makes us sweat, with climbs, descents, the heart that accelerates and slows down. The heart rate must change, and then, yes, we know that the cholesterol level will drop, that the heart will be stimulated, the joints, the muscles. Those who walk quickly while hiking, with a brisk pace, improve their health."

Since not everyone has the time to take 15,000 daily steps in one go, the doctor recommends breaking up the effort. "The idea is to get out of breath. If you walk briskly for a long time, you burn calories, and they continue to burn at night when you sleep. I also remind you that brisk walking is an excellent exercise for people affected by Alzheimer's disease; this effort slows down the symptoms. Those who suffer from osteoarthritis in the knee or hips should never stop walking briskly; the cartilage is nourished by the synovial fluid stimulated by walking."