Explore reading: Watch your step Read the article about counting steps, then answer the questions (1–6) using a maximum of four words. Write your answers in the spaces provided. The first one (0) has been done for you. TIP: Only use the information in the text to lead you to the correct answer. Don’t let your opinion influence you when deciding on what the answer should be. 28 In recent years, the 10,000-steps-a-day regime has become a global obsession although this number is an arbitrary figure. It originates from a successful Japanese marketing campaign. After the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the company Yamasa designed the world’s first wearable step-counter, called manpokei, which translates as “10,000-step meter”. A research team has investigated the potential benefits of taking 10,000 steps. They concluded that the average Japanese person took between 3,500 and 5,000 steps a day, and that if these people increased their daily step count to 10,000, they could decrease their risk of coronary artery disease1. But while the World Health Organization has been recommending 10,000 steps as a daily activity, in recent years this number has been increasingly questioned. Most of the scientific studies simply compare people who have done 10,000 steps a day with those who have done far lower numbers and then measure calories burned, blood pressure and blood glucose levels2. All the studies seem to focus on 10,000, so the media keep reporting this information. For the chronically ill or older individuals who are used to sitting a lot, there are now concerns that making a rapid jump to 10,000 steps a day could have negative consequences. For others, the milestone may seem intimidating and can destroy plans to increase daily physical activity. We know that sedentary lifestyles are bad and can lead to weight gain, increase the risk of bone loss or becoming diabetic. But being obsessed about how many steps we take is not enough. It’s more important, from a public health point of view, to get people off their couches. The question we should really be asking is: how many steps are too few? Some studies investigating the protective nature of exercise against chronic illnesses ranging from heart disease to various forms of cancer suggest that somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000 steps could be the lower boundary to aim for. But while the rise of the step-counter industry has led to a generation of fitness lovers fixated on achieving 10,000 steps, there is also no known upper limit on how much is good for us. Exercise scientists are currently trying to conduct studies to see whether 18,000 steps have long-term health benefits over the traditional 10,000. One of the major problems with the 10,000- steps-a-day goal is that it doesn’t take into account the intensity of exercise. Getting out of breath and increasing your heart rate may well be even more important than the exact number of steps taken. Researchers are currently conducting studies to see whether people who take 10,000 steps a day only by moving around their house achieve the same health benefits as those who do so by fast walking or playing sport. “Scientists have started looking at cadence3, which is the idea of frequency of stepping,” a researcher says. “When intensity’s better, your heart is pounding a little faster, more blood goes through your body, all these things are happening quicker.” Tudor-Locke published the first findings in 2018, in a paper titled “How fast is fast enough?” It suggested that a minimum of 100 steps per minute is required for exercise to be beneficial. “This is the kind of pace which you naturally ascend to when you’re doing purposeful walking,” she says. “But this is just the beginning of this area of research: looking at how healthy people are, not just by how many steps they’ve taken, but by the rate at which they’ve done it.” Watch your step: why the 10,000 daily goal is built on bad science 1 coronary artery disease: Erkrankung der Herzkranzgefäße 2 blood glucose level: Blutzuckerspiegel 3 cadence: Rhythmus 94 Language skills Extras Explore 7 Safe and healthy Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eig ntum des Verlags öbv
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