The 'Smoking Gun' Research

Walking is gaining momentum as a vital part of healthy lifestyles and research studies are delivering more evidence that the regular use of pedometers leads to increased amounts of daily walking. Recently, Dr. Dena Bravata of Stanford University had her 'smoking gun' study featured in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). After analyzing 26 studies Dr. Bravata found that walkers wearing pedometers average 2491 more steps per day than walkers without pedometers. At an average of 20 steps per calorie, that adds up to burning an extra 125 calories per day. This doesn't seem like much until you extrapolate it over a year. In one year the pedometer wearers will have burned the equivalent of 13lbs (nearly 6kg) of weight in addition to accruing many other health benefits, which I'll refer to in this article.

Every Month is a Good Walking Month

As readers of 'Well' know, we at Speakwell have been long-time believers in the use of quality pedometers to help motivate people to walk on a regular basis. Every month is a good month to walk even if you have to strap on some snowshoes or cross-country skis, hop on the treadmill or circle the shopping mall. In the fall, we have Step-tember and Walk-tober, and as the weather cools, we move into Move-vember, where we might walk a little faster to keep warm. (Faster walking leads to a longer life for seniors according to Dr. S. Studenski of the University of Pittsburgh in a recently published study.) Finally, we are now in Dress-ember where we put on our Goretex, extra layers and boots and create our own microclimate. Walkers make their own weather.

ActNow Globally, Think Locally

According to StatsCan, British Columbia is already the fittest province in Canada based on several national surveys. However, being the best of the mediocre is not good enough (particularly as we have the most favorable climate for outdoor activity). By the time of the Winter Olympics in 2010 we want to be a lot more active. To this end Speakwell has partnered with a number of key players to inject an initial 150,000 quality pedometers into municipalities and communities in the Province. Pedometers are much more effective if they are used in conjunction with specific walking goals, and if the daily steps are recorded. Awareness of this has been behind the thinking of ActNowBC, who've worked with CoreHealth Technologies of Kelowna to produce a series of virtual walks for different areas of the Province. What's impressed me about the ActNowBC modus operandi is how inclusive they are in partnering with already existing programs. They have made pedometers available to the on-going 'Steps Out' initiatives designed by Edis Computers of Penticton, which are already operating in nearly 50 provincial communities.

ActNowBC have a number of health goals for 2010 and the ambitious activity goal is to increase the percentage of the BC population that is physically active by 20%. To accomplish this ActNowBC is working with various organizations that can help programs penetrate deep into the roots of the communities and hard to access population groups. Examples include Action Schools BC, Union of BC Municipalities, PacificSport, Active Communities Initiative, BC Parks and Recreation Association, Health Check, the umbrella organizations for Cancer, Diabetes, Heart and Stroke, Lung Disease, also the Healthy Heart Society of BC, which specialize in screening for heart risk factors and 2010 Legacies Now.

Lists don't make interesting reading and the above is incomplete, but it does provide an indication of the careful and inclusive nature of the initiative. In 2008 the public relations and marketing company Karyo Edelman will provide the marketing expertise to give the Walking Challenge high profile support. I'm so impressed to see governments, and the groups they support, putting money and expertise into well thought out, grass roots provincial activity programs. I'm sure our Minister of State for ActNowBC, Gordon Hogg, is well aware of the much-quoted statement from the University of Michigan that "Wellness is the last viable long term cost control strategy."

More on the 'Smoking Gun' study

Other findings worth noting from Dr. Bravata's JAMA study

1. The systolic blood pressure of pedometer users fell 3.8mm Hg. Looks like a small number but a drop of just 2mm leads to a 10% reduction in stroke mortality and a 7% reduction in death from blood vessel problems.
   
   
2. The pedometer users averaged a decrease of 0.4% in the body mass index. Again, a small number, but again in the right direction and equivalent to about 2 1/2lbs in a 195lb person (or just over a kilogram in an 88kg individual) and this was over an average of 18 weeks.
   
   
3. The combination of wearing a pedometer and recording steps is what made the positive difference. Pedometer wearers who did not record steps and had no goal were not significantly different from non-pedometer wearers. It's the old Alice in Wonderland situation.
   
   "Would you tell me please, which road should I take from here", asked Alice to the Cat. "That depends greatly on where you want to go." he answered. "I don't care about "where", said Alice. "Then, it doesn't matter which road you take", the Cat said. "Some road that takes me somewhere", Alice added. "You'll surely take it. You have only got to walk enough".

Overall pedometer wearers increased their measured physical activity about 27%. As Tom Peters says, "What gets measured gets done."

Conclusions

Pedometers are not magic devices; you still have to do your steps on a regular basis. But of all the gadgets and motivational tools, reliable pedometers provide the biggest bang for the buck. They can be successfully integrated into the curriculum in schools (my former colleague at the University of Victoria, Dr. Lara Lauzon, is in the final stages of completing a book on pedometer usage in schools). At Speakwell we've seen a five-fold increase in the number of class sets we've delivered in 2007 over previous years. Pedometers have tremendous acceptance by seniors' groups where walking is still a viable activity choice. Seniors find that the benefits of walking are not limited to just physical well-being. As noted in "Physical Activity: Certainly Not a No-Brainer", Spring Well 2007, Dr. A. Kramer of the University of Illinois published a 2007 study in which he actually imaged the brains of 60 participants before and after the walking program. His conclusion was, "We found in our study that walking will increase the volume of the brain, increase the efficiency of the brain and lead to improvements in the number of cognitive functions such as memory and attention."

Pedometers seem to have universal applications. They work with children; they intrigue seniors and are effective in motivating everybody in between. I anticipate that one of the biggest growth areas of pedometer use in 2008 will be workplace wellness. Well-orchestrated walking programs, sometimes involving inter-branch competition, which use pedometers and virtual walks, mean that a company can sponsor an effective worksite cardiovascular fitness program with minimal capital outlay and maximal participation.

In summary, walking works; pedometer programs lead to increased walking so setting up walking programs seems to be a no-brainer, that's good for the brain, not to mention the body and the spirit.

Vending Machine Pedometers

On the ActNowBC Road to Health Community Tour to promote physical activity, Karyo Edelman created a unique way to distribute our pedometers. They made them available from vending machines. I can see a big future for this with companies, schools, rec centres and other groups using vending machines as an easy way for people to pick up a pedometer.

We Get Letters

It's always good to hear from individuals about their own walking success, or about the achievements of their group. Here's just one example of the many emails we get that reinforce the fact that the promotion of walking and physical activity is worthwhile.

» Stop Press «

It's Physical Activity that Makes the Difference

I always remind people to whom I speak, that if you start an exercise program hoping to improve your fitness and lose some weight, and the weight loss doesn't happen, don't stop exercising. As I've said many times, exercise is great for weight maintenance, but to lose weight it needs to be combined with rigorous caloric restriction. In terms of health and longevity exercise and weight control are both important, but physical activity trumps weight loss.

In a study in the most recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 2603 adults aged 60 or older were followed from 1979 to 2001. Their cardiovascular fitness was monitored on a treadmill and their fitness was assessed by BMI, waist circumference and % of body fat. There were 450 deaths during the study. Somewhat surprisingly there was no statistically significant correlation between the fatness measures and death, but there was a correlation between fitness and death. The less active and less fit were more likely to die. Dr. Sui Xuemei, the lead author of the study, noted that, "The findings suggest that regular physical activity — such as 30 minutes brisk walking daily — can influence longevity even among older adults who are overweight or obese."

My addition to that is that regular walking will not only extend the length of your life, but will improve the quality of your life.

Now we need to get more doctors giving walking prescriptions. (Why not?) So that we can say: