Certain rules of thumb are used almost as mantras by people wanting to live a healthy lifestyle without checking to see where these tips and tricks actually came from.
Because people are inherently different and often have very different fitness needs, goals and considerations, there are a surprising number of universal tips that are discussed, advised and shared around, without thinking about why they were originally coined and what they mean.
Here are some of the most common pieces of health advice and where they come from.
Ten-Thousand Steps A Day
The idea of walking 10,000 steps each day as a general rule of thumb is relatively controversial because not every step is equal.
In the UK, government advice has moved away from 10,000 steps towards more varied and intense physical activity. But where did that original number come from in the first place?
The answer comes from a respected Japanese Doctor, the 1964 Olympic Games and a clockmaker.
Dr Iwao Ohya had a conversation with engineer Juri Kato of the Tokyo-based Yamasa Tokei Keiki voicing his concerns that people were less active and had adopted a more sedentary lifestyle, with his estimate that the average person in Tokyo was walking just 4000 steps a day.
Mr Kato worked for two years on a potential solution in the form of the manpo-kei (‘Ten-Thousand Steps Meter’ in Japanese) which was one of the first digital pedometers and the first marketed as a health invention.
The target was essentially part of the marketing and did not have any particular scientific basis other than the simple fact that being more active is better. However, children and young adults need more exercise (potentially up to 15,000 steps a day) and both the variety and intensity of exercise are important for physical health.
Five-A-Day
Five portions of fruit and vegetables a day is a very common target for governments and health authorities to guide people towards, but according to WHO research the ideal target was closer to eight portions rather than five.
In the 1980s, heart disease had become an epidemic in the western world, and so the World Health Organisation produced a metaanalysis on ways it could be prevented and reduced the figure from eight to five because eight was seen as too unobtainable for a majority of people.
It was a compromise to ensure that more people were getting closer to a healthy diet, and whilst flawed, five a day is a good place to start to improve nutrition.
Eight Glasses Of Water A Day
The final, and most bizarre origin of all is the idea that you need to drink eight glasses of water a day, which equates to two litres of water consumed every day.
The origin of the theory traces back to 1967, although there are similar nutrition guidelines that predate this. Dr Irwin Stillman suggested that people should drink between six and eight glasses of water per day to “wash away fatty acids”.
This pseudoscience was debunked before and after Dr Stillman’s work, as whilst you need to drink water to live, water is in a lot of the foods and drinks we eat, so the actual amount of water you need to drink is considerably lower than two litres.
The main advice of health organisations is to ignore the eight glasses rule and instead drink when you are thirsty, as your body is the best barometer for knowing when it needs a drink.
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