The fitness industry has settled on 10,000 daily steps — a number chosen in 1965 by a pedometer marketing department and defended ever since as ancient wisdom.
Meet it honestly: walk into a room with purpose, let the purpose evaporate in the doorway, and walk back to where the purpose was last seen. Repeat until fit. Our researchers logged 4,200 steps before lunch, all of them between the kitchen and the study, none of them explained. The original errand — remembered at 11 pm — was “sit down”.