Out of step: Faulty step-counters make fitness fans go the extra mile ... or three
By Beth Teitell
Boston Herald Columnist
Thursday, June 22, 2006
So here’s a question for the big thinkers: If you slog 10,000 steps a day as part of a ‘‘sensible fitness regimen” but your free insurer-issued pedometer can’t do math, do all those strides even count?
That’s the hot topic on many an almost-reformed couch potato’s mind in the wake of a British Journal of Sports Medicine study published this month that found almost 75 percent of step-counters stink at their jobs. As in three-quarters. Turns out the ‘‘meter” part of pedometer is often just for show. In more than one-third of the cases, the pedometers were wrong by more than 50 percent.
So now, some five years after the Surgeon General issued the 10,000 steps per day command, we learn that the little gym teachers we’ve been strapping onto our shoes and belts have no !@#$ idea what they’re talking about. ‘‘A quarter mile more and you’ll be up to five,” we think as we check our readout. Yeah, right. Turns out our clip-on-counter napped for more than a few blocks, which explains why I’ve been more tired after a ‘‘four-mile” stroll. Four, six, 12, it’s all the same to that little piece of plastic.
‘‘I’m pissed,” a pedometer slave erupted when I informed her of the situation.
‘‘Why?” I asked. ‘‘You’re still walking the same distance. Your heart’s still getting the same workout.”
Big deal. Nothing in this country counts unless it can be quantified. Each step is an item on her ‘‘to do” list, and she wants to be able to cross it off. And even more importantly, she needs that hard number to brandish the next time her doctor starts making noises about increasing her exercise.
I suggested she simply measure the mileage she clocks on her daily exercise walks, but whoa, what a bad idea. ‘‘With the pedometer,” she explained, ‘‘I get credit for every step I take.” To the refrigerator, the TV (to retrieve the remote), the office vending machine. Those steps are the gimme’s of the pedometer world, the glasses of Coke and wine that count toward your eight-glasses-a-day tally.
She was starting to get so worked up I almost suggested she take a walk to cool down, but she brightened. If the pedometers overestimated her steps, she might be able to pull one over on her doctor. That’ll show him, I’m not going to get enough exercise.
So far no recalls have been issued, but maybe the cause needs more publicity. I think we should organize a march - anyone with me?
