06.28.07
Pedometers Show High Step Count, Low Obesity
How many steps per day are enough to keep you trim and prevent obesity? A pedometer study of an Old Order Amish community showed that their average man logged 18,000 steps per day and their average woman logged 14,000 steps per day, and they had one of the lowest rates of overweight and obesity of any community in North America.
While typical North Americans find logging 10,000 steps a day to be a challenge, requiring dedicated walking time to accomplish, the Old Order Amish achieved it with ease with their typical daily activities. In fact, the only day their average dipped as low as 10,000 steps was on Sunday, their “day of rest.” The farming community was studied in March at a moderate-activity time rather than high-activity time of year such as during harvest.
96 Amish studied wore pedometers for a week and recorded their daily steps and other physical activity. Use of the pedometers and scales did not violate Amish traditions because they were borrowed. The participants were men and women, ages 18-75, in an Old Order Amish community in Ontario, Canada. The study was published in the January, 2004 “Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise,” and conducted by David R. Bassett, Jr. and associates of the University of Tennessee.
None of the men were obese, and only 2 of the women were obese, an overall rate of 4% obesity as measured as a BMI of 30 or more. This compares to 14.9% obesity rate in Canada and 30.9% in the USA.
Of note is that the obesity rates for this community do not compare to that of more sedentary Amish communities where they work in tourist shops and furniture factories. In those communities the obesity rate is similar to their non-Amish neighbors. It might be predicted that it is the high-activity farming lifestyle that keeps this Amish community lean.
The moral of this story: modern lifestyles have greatly reduced our everyday physical activity levels, yet we haven’t reduced our food intake to match.
If you would like to read the full article, see Walking.About.com
SOURCE: Bassett DR, Schneider PL, Huntington GE. “Physical activity in an Old Order Amish community.” Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. 2004 Aug;36(8):1447. Author reply 1448.