0:00

I have one that came to me

0:02

this morning.

0:12

That's

0:15

very fun. Welcome

0:17

to Maintenance Phase, the podcast you

0:20

can count on. That's great.

0:22

Isn't it actually legitimately good? I think

0:24

it's the

0:24

first good one that I've had since

0:27

we started this show. Look, it's no

0:29

inconvenient tooth. What? Once

0:34

every 20

0:34

episodes, one of us just has to nail

0:36

it. You're Michael Hobbs. You're

0:39

Aubrey Gordon. And if you want to know

0:41

more on this show, wait, I did it too fast. I

0:44

was like, do you want to just take it this time? That's fine.

0:46

Wait, let me do it. I'll do it. Great,

0:49

do it. If you want to support the show.

0:55

Do you know that's kind of annoying? It actually makes it very hard

0:57

for me to do it. Has anyone ever told you it's

1:00

very difficult. Now who's the tiny repeating

1:02

machine? Someone else is repeating. You

1:06

can support

1:06

us on Patreon and Apple

1:09

and buy t-shirts at T Public. And

1:12

there's links in the show notes. Look

1:14

at that. You did it. I fucked it

1:17

up. And today we're talking about

1:20

Fitbits and 10,000 Steps. I'm

1:23

calling this episode the Myth of 10,000

1:25

Steps.

1:26

Oh, we're going for it. You

1:28

said myth was too strong for the sugar stuff.

1:31

Yeah, because they weren't all totally myths. It

1:33

was a little more complicated. This one, full

1:36

on a myth. I like it when they're not

1:38

complicated. I like it when they're simple. Michael,

1:41

what is your understanding of

1:43

this sort of 10,000 steps, Mark? And

1:46

what would you say is your relationship to it?

1:48

Are you a person who tries to get your steps in? I'm

1:50

okay. I'm like half spoiled

1:53

on this because every once in

1:55

a while I will kind

1:56

of go around my like methodology

1:58

Twitter places. And I

2:01

will hear tale of

2:03

the fact that this 10,000 steps thing is like totally

2:05

fake. But then I have

2:07

known that you were doing this episode for like six months.

2:09

So immediately upon seeing any reference to

2:12

the 10,000 steps number, I'm just like, Nope, Nope,

2:14

Nope, Nope, close window, control W. Like

2:16

I don't want to get spoiled. Bless you. So I

2:18

know that it's probably not true.

2:21

It's kind of like a suspiciously round number.

2:23

But the thing is, I also probably could

2:25

have just expected that from like the premise of our

2:27

podcast. Yeah, totally. Totally.

2:29

I'm just covering it. Yeah. If

2:31

we're here. Yeah, that's right. That's

2:34

right. And no, I'm

2:36

not really a 10,000 steps guy. I'm not really someone

2:38

who like tries to quantify

2:40

my health stuff. I am actually like

2:42

fairly health conscious, but like

2:45

in a

2:45

qualitative way, just like I haven't

2:47

left the house today. I don't really use

2:49

the apps that like track your job. I

2:52

don't know how fast I run a mile. I've

2:54

done a couple of half marathons. I couldn't even tell you what

2:56

my times were. How about you? Do

2:58

you count anything? I was

3:00

absolutely a hardcore 10,000

3:02

steps lady for like

3:04

a couple of years. Yeah, absolutely. This

3:07

was when I was not seeing

3:09

a doctor. I was like, I better

3:12

be at the top of my game everywhere

3:14

else if I'm not seeing a doctor. Right.

3:17

That's bleak. And I would go walk in Peninsula

3:19

Park, this rose garden in Portland, and

3:22

just walk around

3:22

the big loop until I got my 10,000 steps. And

3:25

then I'd walk back home. And then did you find

3:27

it useful doing it? Or like, how

3:29

do you think about it now looking back? I enjoyed

3:32

it. It definitely like got me out of the house.

3:35

I found this park that I really liked and like

3:37

to spend time in. And I would like meet

3:39

people and

3:40

meet their dogs. And I get to pick out my cute

3:42

workout leggings and all that kind of stuff.

3:44

Right. Yeah. But

3:46

it was also coming from a place of like deep anxiety

3:49

and almost sort of this like

3:50

superstitious desire to believe

3:53

that I just if I just did that, I'd be fine.

3:55

Right. Right.

3:57

Even though I didn't have a doctor. It was a coping

3:59

mechanism. actually like for

4:01

love of the game. You know what I mean? Most

4:03

of adult life is like setting arbitrary

4:06

goals and then reaching them. And so I've

4:08

always been fairly magnanimous

4:10

about people who find this framework useful because

4:12

it's like for you it's like 10,000 steps

4:14

a day for other people it's going to be like 45 minutes

4:17

of walking a day. For other people it's like

4:19

I need to walk my dog or I just

4:21

want to leave the house once a day. I mean people

4:23

kind of come up with these rubrics and like it's

4:25

not really clear to me that like

4:26

one is all that much better than the other like

4:28

whatever works for the person. And so it

4:31

always seemed kind of harmless to me honestly. It's

4:33

like yeah 10,000 steps whatever 5,000 15,000 whatever works for you. Yeah

4:37

I think this is one I would I would put it

4:39

in a similar category which is like

4:41

it's definitely not like the worst or

4:44

wildest thing that we're doing

4:46

as a culture around sort of health and fitness

4:48

stuff right. But it is one

4:51

that is considerably out of step

4:53

with the actual science. In

4:55

a way that I think is really interesting and I think

4:58

part of what interested

4:58

me about looking into this was

5:00

that it really feels like this 10,000 steps

5:03

number has on a cultural

5:05

level taken on that kind of superstitious

5:08

overtone of like if you don't

5:11

hit 10,000 steps like something

5:13

bad is going to happen to your health. And

5:16

as ever all of the science

5:18

that we talk about on this show is a scatterplot

5:20

right. And there's a pretty wide range

5:23

of acceptable numbers of steps to get.

5:25

I like it when you transition

5:25

us from personal preamble to the

5:27

content of the show. Oh look at that. I see

5:30

what's happening right now. As if this is the format I've

5:32

been writing in for years. The

5:36

anecdote of Lee it gives way to the nutgraph.

5:38

That's where we are.

5:40

Yeah that's right. So 10,000

5:42

steps is sort of all around us. It's

5:44

the default goal on a Fitbit on

5:46

an Apple watch on an iPhone. It's

5:49

recommended actually by a number of health authorities

5:52

around the world. Authorities in

5:54

Japan and Australia. The World

5:56

Health Organization talks about 10,000 steps.

5:59

This is a moment in the story

6:02

where I imagine like a record

6:04

scratch and a voiceover of 10,000 steps going, yeah,

6:07

that's me.

6:08

You're probably wondering how I got

6:10

here. If we're gonna talk about 10,000

6:12

steps, we kind of can't

6:14

do that without talking about the device

6:17

that gets us to step counting.

6:20

Fiat, biat. And well,

6:22

pre-fiat, biat. Just straight

6:24

up mechanical pedometers, right?

6:26

Oh, wait, what?

6:27

Before there were Fitbits, there were like actual like analog

6:31

step counters? Are you kidding me? I didn't know

6:33

this existed. Why, I thought

6:35

this was like an invention of like the internet

6:37

era. Michael, tell me you weren't

6:40

in Weight Watchers without telling me you

6:42

weren't in Weight Watchers. Mechanical pedometers

6:45

have been a thing. How do

6:47

they work? They like attach to your hip or something? Yeah,

6:50

absolutely. There's like, it's historically,

6:53

most of them were built by watchmakers

6:55

because it's just a totally mechanical

6:57

like

6:57

weighted system. You sort

7:00

of flip it to your waistband, right? All

7:02

it does is count your steps and it clicks

7:04

when it counts your steps. Oh my God, so you're walking

7:07

in the park and it's like click, click, click, click, click the whole time?

7:09

Yeah, yeah, but like, it's not super

7:11

duper loud, but it does click,

7:14

right? So

7:15

steps or historically paces

7:18

have long been used to measure

7:21

distance. In the research for

7:23

this episode, I learned that the word mile

7:27

comes from the Latin for 1,000 paces. Also,

7:30

we call a foot a foot. We do.

7:33

Like a foot that you walk with. We do. Yes.

7:36

Pedometers themselves were conceptualized

7:40

centuries ago, actually, there

7:43

are some sketches from Da Vinci.

7:45

What?

7:45

But the first one was actually created

7:48

in the late 1700s by

7:51

a Swiss watchmaker, using

7:54

the same mechanism he'd developed for

7:57

a self-winding watch.

7:59

Another. A number of pedometers were

8:01

invented around the same time

8:04

in different countries. One

8:06

of those people tinkering around with this

8:08

thing was Thomas Jefferson.

8:12

So Jefferson reportedly designed the pedometer

8:14

and then commissioned it to be made by a watchmaker

8:17

in Paris. And

8:19

the mechanism for his pedometer is

8:21

very funny. You

8:23

would put it in your like pocket

8:25

and there would be a hole in your pocket.

8:28

The pedometer was tied to a piece

8:30

of string and the string was tied

8:33

to your leg. Oh. So

8:36

when your leg moved it like yanked

8:38

on the string and registered another

8:40

step. That just seems

8:42

really wouldn't it create

8:45

friction in one leg and then you just

8:46

end up walking in a circle? I

8:50

like the idea that it's like a boat with one

8:52

oar. Is this where we get the phrase pulling

8:54

my leg? I don't think

8:57

so. Because pedometers

8:57

were such a joke. So pedometers

9:00

were and are famously

9:03

inaccurate. They're much

9:05

better than they used to be but they're still not

9:08

great.

9:09

The iPhone pedometer, which

9:11

is one of the most widely used currently, is

9:14

estimated to under count your steps by about 21%.

9:18

So if I get 10,000 steps on my phone

9:20

I've actually gotten 12,000 steps roughly. Potentially.

9:24

The ones that you wear at your waistband or your wrist,

9:26

the sort of more mechanical pedometers have

9:29

been reported to capture things like typing

9:31

as taking steps. If you have it on your wrist.

9:34

There is one review that I read where the guy was like, I've

9:37

written one paragraph of this story and in that

9:39

time I've

9:40

logged 54 steps. And

9:42

I was like, okay. I'm like a championship

9:45

fidgeter. So like I bounced

9:46

my leg up and down. So

9:48

I don't know if that means I'd have like 80,000 steps at the

9:50

end of every day. So pedometers have been around

9:53

for quite some time, but they don't really

9:55

catch on, right? They're

9:57

sort of around. Jefferson's tinkering around with them. They

9:59

sort of.

9:59

get a little bit more of a start in the 20th

10:02

century, but for the most part, they

10:04

are known to sort of like

10:07

nerdy quantifier types, right? Part

10:09

of the reason the pedometers don't catch on is that

10:12

for decades,

10:13

selling a pedometer meant explaining

10:16

what a pedometer does and why

10:18

you would want one and what you would

10:20

use it for. It would be like selling

10:23

something today that was like, we'll count how many breaths

10:25

you take. Yeah, this number would not be meaningful

10:27

to me whatsoever. At this point, I

10:30

am transporting you, Michael, to

10:33

Tokyo in 1963. Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.

10:36

Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo. Good

10:39

job, Garth. Oh, wait, Emma, I think

10:41

I'm Garth. Yeah,

10:42

I think you're the Garth. It was my Halloween costume.

10:45

Fat Garth. Remember that.

10:47

I really love that we have us saying that

10:50

in stereo. Fat Garth. So

10:53

we're in 1963. Tokyo

10:55

is getting ready to host the 1964 Olympics. So

10:59

there are a lot of conversations about health

11:02

and fitness and sports sort of in

11:04

the air, right? There

11:07

is a professor and researcher

11:10

in Tokyo who is worried about

11:12

the rising numbers of fat

11:14

people in Japan.

11:15

Okay. This doctor,

11:17

Dr. Hatano, leads a research

11:20

team that determines that Japanese

11:22

people at the time walked an average

11:25

of three to 5,000 steps per day. His

11:29

research team figured out that

11:31

if they went up to 10,000 steps per day,

11:35

all of those average Japanese

11:38

citizens could burn a few hundred

11:40

calories each day. And they added that

11:43

up to a projected weight loss of 20

11:45

kilograms or 44 pounds

11:48

in one year. Oh, this is the thing we've come across

11:50

so many times. Calories in, calories

11:53

out, baby.

11:54

You take very small adjustments

11:56

to food intake or exercise

12:00

Strapolate those out over the year

12:02

and then you're like, oh, uh, switching from 12

12:04

ounce coffee to eight ounce coffee

12:06

will make you lose seven pounds over the course of a year,

12:09

whatever. Totally. This

12:11

doesn't take into account that people compensate in other ways. Yeah. This

12:14

is based on a fundamental calculation

12:16

that a calorie deficit

12:18

of 3,500 calories leads to

12:22

a loss of one pound of

12:24

fat.

12:24

Right. That has been fully

12:27

debunked. Right. Your body adjusts

12:29

its temperature, hunger

12:30

and fullness cues, all kinds

12:33

of other systems kick in basically

12:35

to get you to eat and expend the same

12:37

number of calories every day. So this research

12:40

starts sort of making the rounds in

12:42

the medical community in Japan and the

12:45

head of one of Tokyo's biggest

12:47

clinics is talking to an engineer

12:50

about this idea that he has that

12:53

people need to increase the number of steps

12:55

that they're taking each day. That

12:58

engineer works for a clockmaker

13:00

called Yamasa Tokakeiki. Two

13:03

years later,

13:05

that company in 1965

13:08

introduces something called the Manpo

13:10

Kei, which literally translates

13:13

to the 10,000 step meter. Okay.

13:16

That's a number that they are lifting directly

13:19

from this sort of calories in calories

13:21

out research. So basically it's

13:23

a number pulled out of thin air. Exactly. People

13:26

are getting two to three thousand steps and they're like, if you were getting ten thousand,

13:29

this is how much weight you would lose. And there's some speculation

13:32

and debate about why they chose

13:34

that ten thousand steps number in particular.

13:37

Some folks say it's from the research. Some

13:40

folks say that it's sort of a number of significance

13:43

in Japanese language and culture. It's a number

13:45

that pops up quite a bit. Other folks

13:48

say that the character for ten thousand

13:50

in Japanese kind of looks like a person

13:53

walking. Okay. The product

13:55

catches on in a big

13:57

way. They start releasing

13:59

different models.

13:59

of the 10,000 steps meter. In 1991,

14:03

they release a sort of, they

14:06

call it their discrete pedometer. It's

14:09

a tie tack pedometer.

14:11

What's that mean? Like it's a pedometer in a tie

14:14

tack. What's a tie tack? Oh, a tie

14:16

tack is like the little pin that people will wear on

14:18

their tie to fasten the skinny part to

14:20

the fatter part. There's a name

14:22

for that? I just call

14:24

it the little tie clip thing. I've never

14:27

owned one. I was not anticipating

14:29

teaching

14:29

you a thing about menswear. Yeah,

14:32

I just called it like the pointe-dexter

14:35

clip because that's always like in Revenge of the

14:37

Nerds, they always have those on their ties. Oh, that's

14:39

a tie bar. Wait, there's two different things

14:41

now. There's the tie clip and

14:43

the tie.

14:44

Okay, spin off podcast, spin

14:46

off podcast. We'll pick this up later. Later,

14:48

stay tuned for later in the episode when Mike learns

14:50

what a double Windsor is. I also

14:52

do not, you're joking, but I do not know what the fuck

14:54

that is. I think I might have tied

14:56

more neckties on myself than you

14:59

have tied on yourself. You have seen

15:01

the way that

15:01

I dress in my physical and personal

15:03

appearance, so this is not a surprise to you.

15:06

So they described this tie

15:08

tack pedometer as

15:10

being quote, for the salary

15:12

man who does not want the world to

15:15

see his pedometer. So it's a pedometer

15:18

on your tie and they think that's gonna work? Yeah,

15:20

totally. So just like how much it bounces up and down,

15:22

I guess, basically. I mean, all of these are just

15:25

measuring either movement or acceleration.

15:27

Those are sort of the two models. Yeah, this does seem like

15:30

it wouldn't be very accurate. So this 10,000

15:33

steps meter gets introduced in 1965. Fitbits

15:38

aren't introduced until 2009. So

15:41

what I wanted to figure out is like, what's

15:44

happening with pedometers in the intervening

15:46

years? So I started

15:48

looking around and first,

15:50

I found

15:53

an article from The

15:55

Guardian. It's an odd one. And

15:58

the tone of the article is based on the article. Basically

16:00

like, what's this pedometer

16:02

everybody keeps talking about? I keep hearing

16:04

about pedometers, what are they? I

16:07

am going to send you

16:09

a quote from

16:11

this piece in The Guardian, just

16:13

because it's like fun little ephemera.

16:15

It says, foot

16:17

power is enjoying a renaissance

16:19

thanks to an addictive gadget called a pedometer.

16:22

Worn on the hip and looking like a digital stopwatch,

16:24

pedometers are rapidly making the transition

16:27

from an underground craze

16:28

sported solely by fitness geeks to

16:30

the must have gizmo for those in

16:33

the know. Robbie Williams, Caprice,

16:36

and Cameron Diaz are a few

16:38

of the celebrities who are fans of the pedometer.

16:41

Yeah. Robbie Williams? It's

16:43

like a celebrity item.

16:47

The name of this piece is Stars

16:50

Join the Fitness Craz that makes

16:52

every step count. What? It's

16:55

just in the society section. I'm

16:57

loving pedometers instead. That

16:59

doesn't work. Okay, okay, good guess.

17:01

Give me syllables. More karaoke. Who

17:03

is Caprice? I don't know. If

17:07

they're famous in Britain, they're in a boy band. That's the

17:09

only option. So then

17:12

I started looking at pedometer media from 2004 because

17:14

I'm like, everyone's talking about a pedometer? What's

17:16

going

17:17

on? And Michael, I find a bunch

17:20

of articles about McDonald's.

17:24

This is where shit gets weird.

17:26

It already got weird when you told me that the Thai thing

17:28

has a name. So in 2004, McDonald's

17:32

launches something called their

17:34

Go Active Happy Meal for

17:36

adults. Oh, what? Okay.

17:39

The meal consists of a bottle of water,

17:41

an entree salad, which McDonald's

17:44

had

17:44

just introduced the year before, and

17:47

what they're calling a stepometer.

17:50

It's a clip-on pedometer. During

17:53

this promotion, they distribute 15 million

17:58

stepometers. How

18:00

much was the Happy Meal? How

18:03

the fuck is this Fitbit so cheap? It

18:05

must have cost nothing to produce. It's not a Fitbit,

18:07

buddy. This is the mechanical

18:10

cheapity cheap. Is it just like a little

18:11

digital readout on your hip that

18:13

just says a number, basically? It's like a little calculator

18:16

screen. They market the

18:19

adult Happy Meal, the Go Active Meal,

18:22

in an endorsement deal with Oprah's

18:25

personal trainer, Bob Green. Fuck

18:27

off. You knew Oprah had to be

18:29

involved somehow. Baby, this

18:31

is not the last we're going to hear of Oprah.

18:33

Incredible. Basically,

18:36

McDonald's sales had been flagging

18:39

for a while. And

18:41

much of that was attributed to consumers

18:43

starting to associate

18:45

McDonald's with ill health, and particularly

18:48

with being fat. And it's the height

18:50

of like obesity epidemic, quote unquote,

18:52

media, right? This is like right when

18:54

all of that is really kicking

18:56

off. Yeah, when does Super Size Me come out?

18:59

This is like in that era, right? Why would

19:01

you spoil it this way, Michael? It's

19:03

a direct fucking

19:05

response to Super

19:07

Size Me coming out. Yeah, this

19:09

was peak like blame fast food for everything. Yeah,

19:12

so 2004 is the year that

19:13

Super Size Me comes out. And it is also

19:15

the year that McDonald's introduces these pedometers,

19:18

right? At this time,

19:20

their CEO

19:22

has some very public health

19:25

issues. They had just brought

19:27

their old CEO out of retirement

19:30

to bring back their sort of flagging sales.

19:34

They brought him back from retirement and

19:36

he died suddenly of a heart

19:38

attack at age 60. Oh, wow.

19:41

OK, yeah. And then it's

19:42

like a perfect little juxtaposition of like fast

19:44

food is unhealthy, CEO of a fast food company dies

19:46

of a heart attack, basically. Well, then

19:49

they name a new CEO who's 43.

19:53

And two weeks later, that CEO

19:55

was

19:55

diagnosed with colon cancer. Holy shit, OK. Then

19:58

the CEO was diagnosed with colon cancer. And then the CEO was diagnosed with colon cancer. The president

20:00

of McDonald's US division

20:03

does a little proactive press

20:05

and starts just telling

20:08

reporters, like FYI, my health

20:10

is great. I live a very active life

20:12

with my kids. I work out four times a week.

20:15

I've been doing it for 20 years. Don't worry about me.

20:17

Getting my steps. That's not gonna happen

20:19

to me. What a gross

20:22

response.

20:22

It's also very funny because it assumes

20:25

that the CEO of McDonald's eats

20:27

McDonald's with any of your 30. Sure,

20:29

yes, correct. Absolutely do not.

20:31

Correct. I would say that those are much

20:33

more referenda on the health of

20:35

the lives of CEOs like

20:37

McDonald's eaters. Yeah, this is the health

20:40

effects of golf and leather backseats.

20:42

So the reviews

20:45

of the steppometer from this era

20:49

are brutal. And

20:51

they are hilarious. I can't believe something

20:53

that was $4.99 for a pedometer and

20:56

a salad and a water did not

20:58

work great. I

21:01

found two reviews. I'm gonna send you quotes

21:03

from each of them.

21:04

This is from unique reviews.

21:07

Unique reviews. As anyone

21:09

who's ever finished middle school knows, good

21:12

intentions do not always result in good outcomes.

21:15

The Hindenburg, the Salem Witch Trials,

21:17

and the Titanic are just examples of this

21:19

maxim. Unfortunately, McDonald's

21:22

go active steppometer is

21:24

another item to add to the list. While

21:26

we appreciate that they have good reason to want to

21:28

change public opinion about McDonald's,

21:31

we're not sure that this is the best way to go

21:33

about doing it. The Hindenburg.

21:35

I question whether the Salem Witch Trials

21:38

had good intentions behind them, but that's

21:41

maybe not here nor there. Famously

21:46

just looking out for

21:47

everybody. Cotton Mather. Who

21:49

can fault the people drowning women? You

21:52

know, they were trying. Here

21:54

is a quote from Outside

21:57

Magazine. It says, these

21:59

things are... cheapo, the

22:03

insides rattled about, and we

22:05

could tell when it counted steps by listening

22:07

to it. Brush against it, and as far as

22:10

it knew, you'd walked five steps. Nevertheless,

22:13

never having worn a pedometer for any length of time,

22:15

it was rather addictive to see the number going

22:18

up.

22:18

We can see how this would be a carrot to beginners

22:21

and inactive people. That's

22:23

a good example of, like, the more forgiving

22:25

press around this. It's like, there's a

22:28

set of baked in assumptions, which is like anybody

22:31

who eats at McDonald's

22:31

must need a pedometer,

22:34

must not be walking around. Therefore,

22:37

maybe this is a net gain. But,

22:40

you know, the press and sort of media coverage

22:43

at the time is incredibly clear eyed

22:45

about what's going on

22:47

here. The New York Times calls it, quote,

22:50

McDonald's latest attempt to recast

22:52

itself as a purveyor of healthy

22:54

food in the face of criticism

22:56

that fast food companies have contributed to

22:59

the increasing number of obese people.

23:01

Around this time, McDonald's also changes

23:04

their chicken nuggets to be all white meat.

23:06

I remember that. This is also around the time that

23:08

they phase out super sizing.

23:11

Right.

23:12

And even though kind of

23:14

all of the media at the time is like, this

23:16

is pretty craven, right? It

23:18

works. Yeah. McDonald's sales

23:20

increase even with these like

23:23

very sort of cosmetic

23:24

changes to its menu. Right.

23:26

This is all completely an effort at marketing. It's

23:29

like the oil companies rebranding is like beyond

23:32

petroleum. Yeah. I mean, we've

23:33

talked about this before, but like it also is weird that

23:35

the fast food companies got like all of the blame

23:38

for like American eating habits when like

23:40

Applebee's is like just as bad as McDonald's. But

23:42

like the fast casual sector doesn't have the same kind

23:44

of stigma.

23:45

No, this is the famous thing about

23:47

like the highest calorie dish

23:49

you can get in the U.S. at

23:51

a chain restaurant is the pasta primavera

23:54

at Cheesecake Factory. Right.

23:55

Right. Like the veggie pasta

23:58

is the most caloric thing Right.

24:01

Once this sort of McDonald's

24:03

quote unquote stepometer is introduced,

24:06

it really does boost the profile

24:08

of pedometers and there starts to be more

24:11

media coverage about the utility

24:13

of pedometers and all of that kind of stuff. That

24:15

leads to the 2009 introduction of

24:18

the Fitbit. 2009 is

24:21

also when we got the Wii Fit. Oh

24:23

yeah. Remember that exercise moves

24:25

with your grandma with like little

24:28

controller. Totally. It would make a little avatar

24:30

of you based on your height and weight. And

24:32

I just get a round little avatar,

24:35

just a little butterball,

24:37

just a bunch of circles,

24:39

just little snowman. Totally. Absolutely

24:42

a snowman.

24:44

In 2015,

24:45

the Apple watch is introduced. Oh

24:47

yeah. And that's really when the 10,000 steps

24:50

thing takes off, right? You've got this

24:52

sort of prestige luxury

24:54

kind of item that is an Apple watch, right?

24:57

And one of their big marketing

25:00

tools is fill in your circles on

25:02

your Apple watch, right? And this was a way

25:04

in to get people to think about this

25:07

thing that they had never really considered as being

25:09

any kind of necessity now becomes

25:12

like a daily essential thing during

25:14

this period of like the 2010s. And also,

25:16

I guess it's linked to the

25:18

rise of smartphones too, that you didn't

25:20

have this like internet enabled device

25:22

with you at all times. Then all of a sudden you did. And it's

25:25

like, well, it has the capacity to do this.

25:27

Totally. So it's kind of like you might as well like turn it

25:29

on. Do you even need to turn it on anymore? I think

25:31

it might just come preactivated. Wait, really?

25:33

I think so. Wait, let me, I'm checking my,

25:35

my phone app. Fit. I

25:37

have the fitness app, the health one with a

25:40

little heart in it. That's where mine lives. Oh,

25:42

I can set my daily move goal

25:44

lightly, moderately, highly. Okay. Stay

25:47

motivated with fitness notifications. Absolutely not.

25:49

Don't allow that. Never.

25:52

Oh yeah. God, Jesus Christ. It's been tracking

25:54

your steps. No. Yeah. Fuck. It says 8,037 steps.

25:57

Yeah. There you go. Cause I went jogging this morning. Yeah.

25:59

What the.

25:59

Fuck, I feel violated

26:02

and surveilled, but also I have to do two dozen more steps

26:04

to get it over 10 times. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

26:06

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Well, that

26:09

puts you back in league with our old pal,

26:11

Oprah Winfrey. Ah! In 2016,

26:14

the year after the Apple Watch has introduced,

26:16

Oprah writes in O Magazine that

26:18

she is pledging to get 10,000 steps a day because

26:22

she wants to feel strong and fit.

26:24

Okay. Which again, sure, fine,

26:26

but also when Oprah writes about a thing that she's

26:28

doing, it's never just

26:29

like, hey, this one lady told us about this

26:32

one thing she does. Yeah, if Oprah says literally

26:34

anything, just like a billion dollars goes

26:37

to whatever. Whatever, if she's like, I

26:39

bought a Rhododendron, then like the Rhododendron

26:41

industry quintuples in size

26:43

immediately. That

26:44

same year, 2016, we get another wave of

26:49

pedometer news, and

26:51

this time, it's about kids'

26:54

pedometers. Oh, okay. To

26:57

explain, I have just sent

26:59

you a YouTube link.

27:01

This is footage of a child counting to 10,000. Just

27:04

one, two, three. Let me know when you're

27:06

ready.

27:07

Let me know when you're ready. Let me know

27:09

when you're ready. Let

27:11

me know when you're ready.

27:13

Let me know when

27:14

you're ready. At McDonald's, you can have fun

27:16

with your food. And have fun with steps

27:19

with this step-in activity band in

27:21

your McDonald's Happy Meal.

27:24

So this is like an animated,

27:26

it starts out as like an animated ad of

27:28

a pirate ship and a bunch of slices

27:32

of apple

27:33

pushing a chicken nugget off

27:35

the plank. Like they're murdering the

27:37

chicken nugget. And then a shark jumps

27:39

up. And then a shark jumps up and then as the nugget

27:42

falls into the shark's mouth, the shark turns

27:44

into a real non-animated

27:46

child and the child eats the chicken nugget.

27:49

And then it's like, you can have step-its.

27:51

You can step your steps. Step your

27:54

steps. I've forgotten how it ends already. So

27:58

it's 2016. seeing

28:00

these ads for McDonald's, Penometers

28:03

for Kids, and that is because,

28:05

surprise, surprise, McDonald's

28:08

has gotten a lot

28:09

more bad press in the intervening years.

28:12

Right? Particularly post

28:14

like 2010, they get a big

28:17

wave of stuff. There's

28:19

an artist that does something called the Happy Meal

28:21

Project, in which that artist

28:24

left a McDonald's burger and

28:26

fries

28:26

out on a counter

28:28

to see how long it would take to decay,

28:31

and reported that it didn't grow mold

28:34

after like a full six months. It

28:36

just looked the same. Yeah, I remember that. In 2010,

28:40

San Francisco actually bans

28:42

any meal with a toy being sold

28:44

in the city, unless it's served

28:47

with fruits and vegetables, and the entire meal

28:49

is less than 600 calories. This

28:51

is widely understood to be a direct

28:54

hit at McDonald's, right? Right. And

28:56

also, the Center for Science and the Public

28:58

Interest sues McDonald's to

29:01

stop using toys to market

29:03

Happy Meals, saying the practice

29:06

is sort of manipulative. In their

29:08

filings, they call it, quote, a

29:10

highly sophisticated scheme

29:13

to use the bait of toys to

29:15

exploit children's developmental immaturity

29:19

and subvert parental

29:20

authority. I mean, I don't think that literally anything

29:22

should be marketed to kids. So I'm fine with any

29:25

restriction that stops a company from speaking

29:27

to children. Totally. So I'm cool with this

29:29

shit. One year later in 2011, full page ads appear

29:34

across the country in major US

29:37

newspapers, saying that Happy

29:39

Meals should be banned all together

29:41

because they, quote, contribute to childhood

29:44

obesity. So again, all

29:46

of this anti-McDonald sentiment

29:50

is

29:51

bolstered by McDonald's

29:53

sort of believed role in the

29:55

creation of fat kids, right? It's

29:58

like, we've got all

29:58

these fat kids, who do we blame? Let's

30:00

blame McDonald's, right? This is the problem

30:03

with the putting obesity at the center

30:05

of like all of our fucking health

30:07

stuff.

30:08

It's like we just talk about food and how the food is bad

30:10

and like kids should get more exercise around

30:13

this same time. McDonald's has been

30:15

the target of a few different campaigns

30:18

to get them to do things differently. One

30:20

of them is a long term

30:22

campaign by evangelicals to get them

30:24

to block porn on their

30:27

public Wi-Fi networks. Wait, really?

30:30

Absolutely. And McDonald's does it. Well,

30:32

they have also been targets of a campaign

30:35

to end the McDonald's

30:38

school nutrition

30:39

program. Oh, God,

30:41

that's a bleak oxymoron. Is

30:44

it not, Michael? What is this?

30:47

McDonald's was sending speakers and

30:49

materials to schools to

30:50

talk about nutrition like McDonald's

30:53

branded materials. Guys, no,

30:56

no, no. Their

30:58

main speaker is John

31:00

Sisna, who was the Iowa

31:02

teacher who said that he lost weight

31:05

eating McDonald's. Oh, he was the Jared

31:07

from Subway of McDonald's? Uh-huh.

31:09

He was the guy who was sort

31:11

of like the counterpoint in a bunch of the media

31:13

around Super Size Me. Oh, chances

31:16

of libertarianism moderate

31:18

to high. John Sisna is on McDonald's

31:21

payroll as a brand ambassador.

31:24

OK. There's

31:24

some media of McDonald's

31:27

being like, look, John books his own events

31:29

and we support him in that. If there's stuff we can

31:31

send them, we do that. And

31:34

then the reporters goes to John and

31:36

he's like, oh, I just McDonald's emails

31:38

me and tells me what events to be at, when they

31:41

make the arrangements. And then I just show I

31:43

don't like

31:44

this. Like

31:48

corporations being given

31:50

access to our kids. I think it's really bad. Yeah.

31:53

So this is around the time that they

31:56

phase out that program, but just like there's

31:58

enough ambient pressure.

31:59

Jesus Christ. Around

32:02

this same time, unsurprisingly,

32:05

once again, McDonald's

32:07

profits are down and they've been

32:09

down since 2013. So

32:12

they're in year three of a

32:14

decline in their profits, right?

32:17

In the UK, they're at their lowest point

32:19

in the chain's UK history. That's

32:21

because they didn't get the Caprice

32:22

endorsement. They need Caprice

32:25

from three directions. The

32:27

other thing that is happening at this time, Michael, Michael,

32:32

is this is the height of the Fight

32:34

for 15 campaign in the US. This

32:38

is a campaign to increase the minimum

32:40

wage to $15 an hour. That

32:43

campaign specifically focused

32:46

on fast food workers. And

32:48

McDonald's employees were consistently

32:50

front and center. That's where we start

32:52

getting all those statistics

32:53

about like the average age

32:55

of a fast food worker is like 36. Yeah.

32:59

Dispelling these myths about like, these are just jobs

33:01

for teenagers or whatever. No one's really

33:03

living on it. McDonald's is getting

33:05

bad press all over the place

33:07

and their sales are down. It's

33:10

not great.

33:10

Right. We're only paying that brand ambassador $9 an

33:13

hour. I'm sure that's what it was

33:15

really about. Their next choice

33:18

was to introduce these step

33:20

at pedometers for kids. And

33:24

very quickly,

33:26

the whole thing goes south. A

33:28

Facebook post pops

33:31

up and gets shared like 100,000 times

33:33

very quickly. OK.

33:37

Of a mom showing pictures

33:39

of her toddler wearing the pedometer

33:42

and then taking it off and showing this

33:44

kind of gnarly like

33:46

burn welt. Oh,

33:48

right. Because the in the

33:50

ad, the little pedometer

33:53

was like a watch. It's like a mini Apple

33:55

watch thing, but it's in like pastel like kid colors.

33:57

Totally. And it's not it is

33:59

made to.

33:59

have the appearance of sort of like

34:02

an Apple Watch or a Samsung Watch

34:04

or something. It's just a

34:07

digital pedometer with the little calculator screen,

34:09

but they have a sticker around the rest of it to

34:11

make it look like it's apps or whatever. Right. Right.

34:13

Right. Right. This Facebook post makes the

34:15

rounds. It starts to garner media. McDonald's

34:19

says publicly that they have gotten 70

34:22

reports of skin irritation

34:25

or

34:25

burns to

34:28

children. Okay. So they

34:30

voluntarily recall all 32 million

34:32

of these kids' pedometers. Holy shit. It's

34:37

a huge, weird

34:40

story. Yeah. As with the 2004 pedometer,

34:44

the 2016 kids' pedometer is an absolute

34:47

piece of shit product. Yeah, it must be. Yeah. This

34:50

is the one where the CNET

34:52

reviewer does a review and says that they

34:54

got 54 steps from

34:56

typing, but then they took

34:58

a 500 step walk and only 40 of those steps registered

35:01

on the McDonald's

35:05

kids' pedometer. So they should have said that

35:06

it was a keystroke monitor and not

35:09

a walking monitor and get the kids typing

35:11

more.

35:12

The ringer published a review of

35:14

the Step-It pedometer titled a

35:16

very serious review of McDonald's

35:18

flesh burning fitness tracker.

35:20

Nice. That

35:22

was the head. The deck was just, I'm

35:24

loving it. Nice. Did

35:27

anyone adjust the number for

35:29

kids?

35:29

Were kids also supposed to get 10,000 steps a day? Cause

35:31

like their little steps are shorter or something. They're actually

35:34

supposed to get more than adults. There's

35:36

some specific research on this on

35:39

sort of like how much, how many steps

35:41

should adults get? How many steps should seniors

35:43

get? That's a different number. Right. So

35:46

let's dig in on the data, right? Let's

35:48

do it. The research is really

35:51

clear on this subject. There's

35:53

not a single number that folks have arrived

35:56

at, but what we know for sure is 10,000

35:58

steps.

35:59

is a fine number, it's not a bad number,

36:03

but it isn't specifically

36:05

tied to a decreased risk of

36:08

mortality or specific health conditions.

36:11

Basically, in a bunch

36:13

of the research and literature, they say,

36:15

look, 10,000 steps is a pretty good

36:18

shorthand for something that we know for

36:20

sure, which is that people should be

36:22

getting a certain number of minutes, about 150 minutes, of

36:24

what's called MVPA, moderate to

36:30

vigorous physical activity

36:31

each week. So 10,000

36:34

steps a day gets you there with a little

36:36

space to spare. And

36:39

all of the research is basically just like, look,

36:41

this only matters insofar as it gets you to

36:43

that goal.

36:44

For adults

36:46

under 60, most of the

36:49

research shows that 6,000 to 8,000 steps

36:51

per day is the

36:55

sweet spot. Using over 7,500

36:57

steps a day, your benefits sort of plateau.

37:01

And are these based on anything? Are

37:03

these based on the RCTs or are they just these

37:05

big cohort studies? These are big cohort

37:07

studies. And they are looking much

37:09

more at like, what's the scatterplot of people's

37:12

actual existing activity

37:14

patterns? So these are just associations, basically.

37:16

Totally. It's not if you get more steps, you're healthier. It

37:19

could be if you're healthier, you get more steps.

37:20

Absolutely. We can't

37:23

say, as a result of getting 6,000 to 8,000

37:25

steps a day alone, you will therefore have

37:30

all of these other health outcomes.

37:31

We can say, there's a correlation between

37:33

people who get 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day and

37:36

people who have fewer

37:39

risk factors for stroke and heart disease.

37:41

Right. So it's kind of meaningless. A little

37:43

bit,

37:43

right? I just

37:45

tend to think all this stuff is bullshit. It's all still

37:48

a shorthand to get at

37:50

just like physical activity. Yeah.

37:53

It seems like it's fairly uncontroversial to say that some

37:55

level of physical activity regularly is very

37:57

good for you. But then there's just this weird

37:59

fucking

37:59

project to try to define specifics.

38:03

And like, yeah, I just don't, I just don't

38:05

understand why. I mean, I

38:07

guess like on an individual psychological

38:10

level, I get why people would want to like aim

38:12

for a number. Yeah, but I don't understand why like

38:14

the sort of the public health apparatus

38:17

is like aiding in that effort. I suspect

38:19

that this comes from the like pretty deep

38:22

running

38:22

understanding of like something's better

38:24

than nothing. Yeah. And if people are grabbing

38:26

onto this thing, we might as well say, yeah, that's

38:28

a good thing to do. I've gotten so radicalized.

38:31

You really are searching the show. You really

38:34

have like correlations and like you can try

38:36

to control

38:36

for stuff fine, but like we just

38:38

don't really know and I don't understand

38:42

this project of trying to define

38:44

like the correct number of steps for

38:46

the population as a whole when the population is 330

38:48

million fucking people in it. People have totally

38:51

different needs and abilities and stuff. It's like what

38:53

is the point of this? And it is a deep

38:55

tail wagging the dog moment, right?

38:58

Where it's like marketing came up with 10,000

39:00

steps and now there are all these

39:02

researchers being like why is 10,000 steps

39:05

the number? Why is 10,000 steps not the

39:07

number where I'm just like this is the

39:09

wrong order for things

39:12

to go in. Right. And even if we were

39:14

able to define that like, okay, you should get exactly 6,100

39:16

steps per day, then we're just back

39:19

to like an arbitrary number that isn't going to

39:21

apply to very many individuals because different individuals

39:24

have different needs. Right. And already it's already

39:26

pretty banal to say that like yeah, try

39:28

to get activity regularly. I will say even

39:30

within the like steps literature.

39:33

There is a significant debate about

39:36

the number of steps versus the pace

39:38

of those steps. Oh, yeah, of course,

39:40

right? So people are like, well, if you take them really

39:43

slow, do they really

39:44

count? How much does it matter? And

39:46

there's like some indication that like there's

39:49

some researchers who argue that you need

39:51

to get a pace of a hundred steps per minute

39:53

minimum and that's how you get the benefits

39:55

of all of this like driving

39:58

further and further into grand.

39:59

regularity rate with this kind of stuff.

40:02

I am a brisk

40:02

Walker. So maybe my maybe

40:05

my 8,000 steps counts as more Okay,

40:07

I have like nervous little legs just like

40:09

a little chihuahua.

40:11

I really love that your

40:14

Response to finding out your own step

40:16

count is like a case study in

40:18

how weird this can make people I don't

40:20

like it. You're just like I don't like knowing

40:23

it. Yeah, I should have had more than that But

40:25

also I don't care. But yes, I do but

40:27

shut up. You're not my real dad. I

40:28

know exactly We've

40:32

done this live on the show me finding out that

40:34

my phone knows my fucking stuff and now I

40:36

feel totally surveilled

40:38

Right and also it does kind of take

40:40

over your brain, right? Yeah, I've

40:42

gone through denial Bargaining.

40:45

I mean I will say there are

40:47

a bunch of really hilarious Genuine

40:51

little like influencers and cottage

40:53

industries and whatever about

40:56

like

40:56

how to juke the stats on your pedometer

41:00

What is wrong with people? Totally.

41:02

Well, this is the thing that I told you about my nephew Just

41:04

like getting one of them shaking his wrist

41:06

and figuring out that that did it There

41:09

was also a video that I found

41:11

where they attached a pedometer to an electric

41:13

drill

41:15

Yeah, totally

41:17

you're just cheating yourself at that point like no

41:20

one else cares about this unless it's for like a workplace

41:22

wellness nightmare program Like why

41:25

do this you have never had? Stronger

41:28

high school vice principal energy

41:31

than when you just said you're only cheating. I'm

41:33

not mad. I'm just disappointed Everyone

41:38

on the internet today so

41:41

Here's where things I think get interesting in the

41:43

research the thing that matters Really

41:46

the most and there does seem to be quite a bit

41:48

of consensus around this is consistency

41:50

Oh, yeah moving around and moving around

41:53

regularly and getting into the habit of moving

41:55

around

41:55

are all good things and

41:58

it appears that

41:59

the most important ingredient

42:02

in consistency, regardless of how

42:04

long you spend doing activity, the

42:06

most important thing is like regular activity,

42:09

right? It appears that the most

42:12

important ingredient in consistency,

42:14

it's liking the thing. Do

42:16

you like it? Do you like moving around

42:19

in the way that you're moving around? Then you're gonna do

42:21

it more regularly. That's the thing that

42:23

matters for your health

42:25

is if you're doing something consistently, which happens

42:27

when you do something fun that you like. To

42:30

wit, me and my rowing machine and also

42:32

swimming. Those are two of my favorite things.

42:35

I am a water baby. And walking your little dog,

42:37

walking your little gentleman. Little

42:39

gentleman, that's right. Oh well, yeah.

42:42

And like to wit, you riding your bike around.

42:45

I like riding my little

42:46

bike, I like shouting at drivers. What

42:49

are some, do you have other faves? I feel like

42:51

mine are rowing machine, swimming,

42:53

hiking. I live in Seattle and you lose your visa

42:56

if you don't go hiking at least once a week, so there's that. Yeah,

42:59

I like going rock climbing because it's social but it's not

43:01

competitive.

43:01

Oh, that's a good one. Yeah,

43:03

that's the thing is it's only gonna work if you like

43:05

it and look forward to it. I have a very

43:07

strong memory. I think part of the reason

43:10

rowing machine makes my list is

43:12

that I have a very strong memory of getting

43:15

on my dad's rowing machine in

43:17

the 80s when I was like a kid and

43:19

being like, what's he doing with this thing? What's it all

43:21

about? And I got on it and started doing what

43:24

I had seen him do on the rowing machine and

43:26

I was like,

43:27

this isn't exercise, this is just a ride.

43:30

He's just doing a ride. So that's

43:32

what it does for you. It just felt like a

43:34

game. It felt like a fun, you're just going

43:37

like, wee back and forth on this sliding

43:39

seat. And that's ultimately kind

43:41

of arbitrary too. Whatever you find fun is

43:43

due to deep childhood needs

43:46

or my own weird anti-competitive stuff, but

43:48

it's just gonna be different for different people. It

43:51

seems like the only thing you can say from the research is that

43:53

try to get exercise and do something you like. Absolutely.

43:56

I will say

43:58

I am similarly in the camp of... individual

44:00

only, but mostly because as a fat

44:02

person moving in front of

44:05

other people is a goddamn

44:07

mind field.

44:07

People are the fucking worst. Right? So

44:10

like I am also in camp solo. Like if

44:12

friends are like, we're all going to go for a hike. I'm like, have

44:14

fun. Yeah. I'll go on a separate

44:16

one by myself. Have you had shitty things happen when you've gone on hikes with other

44:18

people? Absolutely. Not like

44:20

hugely shitty, but like just enough to make you

44:22

feel

44:23

out of place. It just makes you like aware of it. Yeah.

44:26

Like a lot of check. Like, are you doing okay? Right?

44:29

Like, I'm just like, I don't, it's just all little

44:31

reminders. You know what I mean? Nothing terrible,

44:34

nothing the worst ever, but like no

44:36

one's checking in with anybody else. It's

44:39

just the fat lady. Yeah. You

44:40

want to be at home in your body. And I feel like that like takes you

44:43

out of the experience of people. Totally. And

44:45

it reminds you that other people are seeing you first

44:47

through your body. Right.

44:48

And also just like other people being

44:51

like, good job. You know what I mean? Where

44:53

you're just like, I also don't need that. Yeah.

44:56

Pretend like I don't exist. Like you do with everybody else. I

44:58

quietly resent that I have my headphones

45:01

in. Oh yeah. Yeah. Judge

45:03

me for that. Pick a weird hiking

45:05

beef

45:06

with me. You should have one of those fucking

45:08

Bluetooth speakers when you go hiking and then everyone will hate

45:10

you because of that. And they won't hate me because

45:12

I have a Bluetooth speaker. They'll hate me because

45:14

I'm using it to play LMFAO

45:17

at Top Folly. Those

45:21

are the only times in nature that I like genuinely

45:23

consider committing murder. I'm

45:26

like, well, some of the fucking Bluetooth speaker out here. As

45:29

we're talking about consistency and movement,

45:31

right? And enjoyment of movement.

45:34

There is a little bit of evidence that

45:37

shows that the actual process

45:39

of counting your steps may

45:42

reduce or eliminate

45:43

that enjoyment. Oh, I'm

45:46

sending you a brick and I apologize that

45:48

it is such a brick. I don't know. It's

45:50

fine. You don't have to apologize. There you go. All

45:53

right. Sorry. You don't mean

45:55

apology. I do. I did

45:57

already. Ten

45:58

thousand words per day. for your

46:00

health. Thanks for my health, for my brain health. When

46:02

we know that our walking habits are being recorded,

46:05

for instance, we're more likely to walk, but

46:07

we also take less pleasure in strolling. Duke

46:09

University professor Jordan Etkin argued that

46:11

it's because the act of measuring the output

46:13

makes enjoyable activities feel more like

46:16

work, which reduces their enjoyment.

46:18

To test the hypothesis, Etkin coordinated

46:20

six studies involving tracking various activities

46:23

such as reading and walking. In one, 95

46:25

college students were asked to choose whether or not

46:27

to wear a pedometer all day. Some could see

46:30

the step count while others could not. At the end

46:32

of the day, they were asked to report how much they enjoyed walking.

46:34

Those who could see the steps ticking up throughout the day

46:37

did end up walking more, but reported less

46:39

enjoyment. The results suggest, Etkin

46:41

wrote, that measurement reduced enjoyment

46:44

even among people who chose to be measured.

46:46

Which is to say, even when we think we

46:48

want answers, the results might make

46:51

us crabby. I relate because I just

46:53

found out about my 8,000 steps and I'm livid. Totally,

46:55

and your brain latches onto

46:57

it in a way that's really annoying

46:59

and doesn't feel good. What

47:02

I have noticed about myself, this is entirely

47:04

anecdotal, is that when I got

47:07

really fixated on 10,000 steps

47:09

a day, I felt absolute

47:13

garbage every day that

47:15

I fell short. It wasn't like the 10,000

47:17

steps days I felt really good about myself

47:20

for doing a good thing. I felt

47:22

good, but that was the baseline. If

47:24

I fell short of that baseline, I felt

47:27

like I was a failure and I felt like my

47:29

health was at stake. Again, if

47:31

you like tracking, if you feel like it's

47:33

working for you, great, go for it. There

47:35

are some people that love it. Go to town. Yeah.

47:38

But if it feels bad to you, that might

47:40

be worth listening to, right? It might be

47:42

worth finding something that feels good to

47:45

you. The key is setting goals

47:46

that you can always achieve. I'm going to give the final

47:48

word on 10,000 steps to

47:50

Mike Brannon, who was the national lead

47:53

for physical activity at Public Health

47:55

England, who says, quote,

47:58

there's no health guidance that exists.

47:59

to back it. Ta-da! Boo-ya!

48:03

Boom! 10,000 steps! You

48:05

don't need it! I'm so haunted by learning my steps

48:07

today, Aubrey. I'm so sorry. I think you can

48:09

turn it off if you want to turn it off. I would like to turn

48:11

it off. You don't have to wear that. I don't want to wear

48:13

it. Stone around your neck. I don't want to wear it. We

48:15

got 8,000 steps today. It's bullshit. Everyone

48:18

knows that

48:18

I haven't done cocaine and I got 8,000 steps. I

48:20

don't know what to do with this. How much coke did you get

48:22

offered? Dude, people were emailing

48:24

me. And I'm like, please

48:27

do not offer me illegal drugs in

48:29

writing on Twitter

48:32

DMs or whatever. Who fucking knows who else can

48:34

read that? Please do not do this.