Walking the Tube

There was an interesting article in the London Evening Standard yesterday entitled "Walk the the tube with a step-by-step map". It reported the findings of a study organised by the health insurer PruHealth to establish how far apart in terms of steps are central London tube stations. Volunteers armed with pedometers recorded the number of steps they took and averages have been recorded on a tube map.

The message of course was that walking instead of taking the tube - or getting off a stop early - is an excellent way to help meet the recommended 10,000 steps a day target. And if you don't have a pedometer, forget it or don't want to wear it one day, you can still know how many steps you have taken.

Standard readers posted many supportive comments, although one or two wags noted that walking the tube was potentially hazardous as there might be trains on the lines.

The original map is on PruHealth's website (in the press releases section).

Counting steps - initial experiences

Although I go out walking pretty much every week and more often when possible, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that I am steadily becoming less fit. A combination of my basically sedentary lifestyle and increasing age seem to be to blame.

For the new year I have resolved to aim to get out twice a week (successfully implemented so far) and to begin to use step counting to drive further improvements. The initial two weeks of step counting have been very illuminating.

All the advice is that you need to aim for 10,000 steps a day. On days when I don't go out for a walk, my default level is between 2000 and 3500, depending on what I am up to. So it is pretty obvious that a reasonably major change in behaviour (a step change!) is going to be necessary. I knew it would be bad, but I hadn't realised quite how bad.

On the other hand, 2000 steps equates to a mile walk, so simply looking for opportunities to walk rather than using the car or public transport or a daily couple of miles around the local neighbourhood will fairly easily double the default level.

With this sort of tactic, plus going on proper walks twice a week I am averaging around 9,000 steps a day so far which I quite encouraging.

I have also learned some important things about my pedometer. It has three basic flaws - which in effect reveal the critical criteria for buying a pedometer:

• It occasionally resets to zero, presumably because the reset button comes under pressure, or is touched accidentally.
• The count is not consistent: five mile walks have ranged between 9,000 and 11,000 steps.
• The waist band clip is not tight enough, so it sometimes falls off.

A little belated market research has revealed that the Yamax digiwalker SW 201 is widely regarded as the most accurate on the market, and it comes with a flip case, so the reset button is covered. It also has a security cord, so it can't fall off. And best of all, all it does is count steps, it does not seek to measure distance, count calories or anything else at all. I have ordered one pronto.

Ecotherapy - or Green exercise

There was a lot of coverage in the press recently of research done for the mental health charity MIND by the University of Essex. The Daily Telegraph reported it under the headline “A walk in the country may beat depression”. The research showed that walking in the country was associated with increased self esteem, while a comparable walk around a shopping centre led to decreased self esteem for many of the participants.

What are we to make of this? I sought out the MIND report “Ecotherapy – the green agenda for mental health” to find out.

First of all, I must congratulate MIND’s PR people for getting so much coverage in the national press – no mean feat. But I wonder if the coverage and the report might contain some elements of a shot in the foot.

The research looks to be seriously flawed. It was based on a sample of “20 members of local MIND associations” who took part in two walks, a week apart. The first was 30 minutes around a country park and the second 30 minutes around a shopping centre. They were asked to complete a Mood State questionnaire before and after each walk and the findings are basically the before and after comparisons.

The main problems appear to be threefold. Firstly, 20 is a very small sample on which to base conclusions which are intended to inform national policy making. Secondly, there is no information on the baseline mental state of the participants – which would surely inform how they responded. Thirdly, all you can really conclude is that as a leisure activity walking in a park is better than walking around a shopping centre, which is hardly a shock. It’s a big leap from there to say that ecotherapy should replace anti-depressants.

What is “ecotherapy” anyway? It seems to be any of gardening, conservation activities or walking (or indeed running or cycling). What is quite interesting however is that searching the University of Essex website reveals an interesting presentation by Professor Jules Pretty, who appears to have done the MIND research, which uses instead the term “Green exercise”. One of the slides explains that there is evidence that physical activity is known to have a positive influence on physical and mental health and exposure to nature is known to have a positive influence on mental health. The Essex team coined the term Green exercise, hypothesising that there should be a synergy if the physical activity takes place while being directly exposed to nature.

So, conclusions?

• The idea of green exercise makes sense – but why dress it up as ecotherapy?
• Research to demonstrate its benefit in the mental health arena needs to be more robust to be convincing. Something like a comparative study of two groups of patients through time would make sense: one group have conventional drug therapy and the other green exercise as well or instead. Demonstrable changes there would be impressive and convincing.
• But well done to MIND for getting their message out so effectively.