"Counting Steps - A Fad?"

 

This short essay can be categorized as escapism, using the word in its positive sense. Walking is a great exercise. The pace of the world slows. It provides the opportunity to witness nature at work in the world around us. 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Counting Steps – A Fad?”

August 5, 2023

 

“Whenever I’m interested in something, I know the timing’s off, because I’m always interested in

the right thing at the wrong time. I should just be getting interested after I’m not interested anymore.”

                                                                    Andy Warhol (1928-1987)

                                                                   The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again, 1975         

                                                                

“It’s all the rage” refers to a fad, trend, obsession, or anything popular, especially if short-lived. Should we say that about counting steps? My wife likes to complete at least 10,000 steps a day, and she usually does, marking them off religiously on her Fitbit. But is this habit a fad, and does it have legs? Pun intended.

 

Most fads, like slinkies from the ‘50s, cars with fins from the ‘60s, and pet rocks from the ‘70s were harmless and ephemeral. A few were silly (as well as ephemeral)), like flagpole sitting from the 1920s, swallowing goldfish in the ‘30s, telephone booth stuffing in the ‘50s, crazy hairstyles of the ‘60s, and the currently trending men’s “long shorts.” But there were (and are) fads that are good, which promote exercise and/or mental acuity: dance marathons and pogo sticks from the 1920s, hula hoops and frisbees from the ‘50s, Rubik’s Cubes from the ‘70s, and now counting steps.

 

Separating fads from technological advances is not easy. There were those who thought the automobile a fad. Henry Ford’s lawyer Horace Rackham is alleged to have said: “The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad.” And it is claimed that Charlie Chaplin once said that movies were a fad, that people prefer live entertainment. So, we wonder at new technologies: Are today’s electric vehicles precursors of tomorrow’s automobiles? Will offshore wind farms deliver needed power, or will they only be “blowing in the wind?” 

 

However, my wife, in rigorously recording her steps, may be onto something. Medical News Today, a web-based outlet for medical information, notes: “For general fitness, most adults should aim for 10,000 steps per day, with fewer than 5,000 steps being a sign of a sedentary lifestyle.” Before those of us who are octogenarians panic, they go on to explain that the number depends on a person’s age. But that a 10,000 steps goal is recommended. The CDC agrees and Martha Stewart concurs, or at least Lauren Wellbank, writing in Martha Stewart Living, does: Tracking one’s steps is “a good motivator to get up and move.”

 

I used to be flippant about my wife’s obsession with counting every step, saying I was trying to keep mine under 5,000 per day. But my wife’s persistence and resulting good health has turned me around. I have not reached 10,000 steps a day, but I am now usually above 5,000.

 

Are counting steps only a fad? Had he lived to witness today’s Fitbits and smart phones measuring each step, Neil Armstrong might have added to his famous quote when he first stepped onto the moon’s surface – ‘and thousands of steps for a healthy life.’ As to the question, the answer must be ‘no.’ Our good health is the goal; so, keep walking. It’s all the rage!