Forget walking 10,000 steps a day – I have another solution | Stuart Heritage

Fitness trackers are pointless, especially when you're only walking to the kitchen for another bacon sandwich

Wearing a fitness tracker, are you? Eager to get your 10,000 steps today, are you? You idiot. Those things are useless. Last year, the University of Pittsburgh published a study claiming that people who wear fitness trackers tend to lose less weight than people who don't. Then yesterday, a professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University went further, saying that a daily 10,000-step target could be harmful for some users. Honestly, all said, you would probably lose more weight if you took off your fitness tracker right now and spent an hour violently tutting at it.

The latest findings were presented by Dr Greg Hager at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He said that the target of 10,000 steps was all but arbitrary, having roots in a single study of Japanese men 57 years ago, and that it fails to take into account any environmental or societal variables that may occur from person to person. Three million wearable fitness trackers were bought in the UK in 2015 alone and yet, according to Hager, many owners might be striding towards a target that simply isn't suitable for them. You have all been wasting your money. You idiots.