The Iron Yuppie

NPR : Pedometer Fitness Fad Takes Off

I couldn't help but laugh when I heard this. I love the idea that walking is the answer to all our exercise/obesity issues. Through the magic of time travel, allow me to discuss this with my ancestor of 500,000 years ago.

Me (Present Day): Hey ancestor, what's happening?
Great-Great-(Great)^12,000-GrandDad: Ogg?

Oops, that's a bit far. Let's chat with my ancestor of 10,000 years ago.

Me (Present Day): Hey ancestor, what's happening?
Great-Great-(Great)^250-GrandDad: Yo.
M: You wouldn't believe what's taking off nowadays, old man! It's called a pedometer!
G: Uh... what?
M: Yeah, it's called a pedometer, and it measures how many steps you take each day.
G: So? What are you going to do with that?
M: Well, now we can measure how much we've walked every day to make sure that we've get enough exercise!
G: What's exercise?
M: Today we need to make sure we move around enough or else we’ll get fat and die young.
G: Why?
M: Cause we eat so much!
G: … *disbelieving look*
M: Uh, well, in the future, we eat sweets and meat and carbs and Cinnabons and FatBurgers and Slurpees and … well, I could go on but my mouth is drooling. The problem is that we eat so much, and then do not do anything that we get obese and that causes us to die early.
G: So let me get this straight, you have so much food that you DIE?
M: Yeah!
G: Um, tough life. Couldn’t you just eat a little less so you don’t die?
M: Easier said than done. Imagine that Cinnabon’s are the sweetest of the sweet and if you taste even just a little bit, you’re completely addicted.
G: I guess.
M: Yeah, so we have to do things that are hard like run for miles or lift heavy things or swim in a lake in order to not die.
G: So you can train to kill your food more easily and defend your family?
M: Um, no, we get food from a place called a store where stuff just sits around waiting for us to pick it up. We don’t really have to defend our family cause dangerous animals are usually in far off places or in restricted nearby locations called zoos.
G: Yikes. Sounds really dangerous. I pity my descendants.
M: You don’t need to be so sarcastic.
G: Fine, so what’s this pedometer thingy?
M: Well, other than running or swimming or lifting heavy things, another way of getting exercise is by walking and the pedometer tracks how much you walked.
G: Walking is exercise?
M: Yeah! It’s super easy.
G: Of course it’s easy, how the hell else are you supposed to get from place to place.
M: Well, we have these things called cars that … you know what, never mind. Just assume we can magically move from place to place without walking.
G: So, if I understand correctly, you have all the food you want, and you don’t need to walk anywhere so, in order to correct this clearly disasterous situation, you need to not eat food which is readily available everywhere and walk a bunch, even though you don't need to.
M: I guess that about sums it up.
G: …
M: What?
G: You guys have got to be the dumbest people I’ve ever heard of. I really do pity my descendants.

Tune in soon when I have a conversation with MY great^250-grand kids and discover they need to hire sleep and breathing trainers because they have machines that take care of that annoying habit in the future!

D