Hilarious Reddit thread on walking in the US vs UK

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know if it is still the same, but many Europeans go to a wolksmarch - a walk through the woods near a city. In addition, many couples/families would walk at night after dinner in the towns I lives near in Germany. Walking was a past time.

I’m the British poster and we definitely don’t do that🤣. I do see Indian immigrants doing that though at night.

Fun fact: the UK has more obese children than the US. I’m just a few years I think we are going to steal the crown!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know if it is still the same, but many Europeans go to a wolksmarch - a walk through the woods near a city. In addition, many couples/families would walk at night after dinner in the towns I lives near in Germany. Walking was a past time.

I’m the British poster and we definitely don’t do that🤣. I do see Indian immigrants doing that though at night.

Fun fact: the UK has more obese children than the US. I’m just a few years I think we are going to steal the crown!

I’m in UK now and honestly shocked at how overweight everyone is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all, taking long walks (1+ hours) on pavement is awful on your knees & feet, even if you don’t feel the impact immediately.

Second, if not owning a car correlated with being fitter, those who do not own cars & whom are completely reliant on public transportation (including public buses) for their every need would be the fittest among us. Obviously, that is not the case.

Walking for an hour plus is awful on your knees and feet? The “impact” of WALKING? Is this some kind of troll post? How horrendously out of shape are you? Let me guess, if somebody does any amount of running their knees will explode by the time they are 60.

Unreal. Absent some health condition not of your own making, if you can’t walk 10 miles and you are under the age 65, you are doing life wrong. Most Americans can’t walk FIVE miles to save their life.

It’s not exclusively an American thing. I know plenty of sedentary Brits and continental Europeans. And even those that do walk a lot that just eat and drink poorly.

It’s like idiocracy sometimes. Where is the brawndo?

You missed the “on pavement” part. Versus on soft surfaces.

The fit neighbors I have can't walk 10 miles. Most do less than 5 on their big walks.

If that's all they do, they're not that fit. A 3-4 mile walk for me is a rest day. Walking medium-long distances is nothing for my 44 year old body, if not a relaxing reset.

I tend to be one of the posters on here that snaps back at people being snarky, but I agree with this 100%.

Absent some form of health impediment, a "fit" person under the age of 65 should be able to walk effectively indefinitely and certainly at least 10 miles.

Unfortunately, the percentages of people in both the US and UK that fit into that category are not very high.

NP, I walk a brisk 5 miles daily and enjoy a long hike, but 10 miles on pavement has my feet burning, especially at a good pace. Fitness (meaning muscle and cardio) has little to do with joints and feet, and it's really ignorant to pretend that walking on hard surfaces doesn't stress your support structure.

Re: walkability, let's be realistic about the free time people have. If I walk my kid to school and walk home, thats an hour round trip; another hour in the afternoon. I have to start work earlier and end later to do that. Then let's say I walk to the grocery, that adds an hour or more to my trip. And by then I've only walked like 6 slow miles so I probably need to do another hour, fast, for fitness. That's 4 hours plus work and home life and social life ... it doesn't all fit.

There have been some funny things posted on here, but this one is the best. The sentence itself is contradictory - what structures do you think are surrounding joints that actually make them function properly? Perhaps muscles and ligaments? Physical therapy works because of the adaptations sought to strengthen those structures - around the knee for example.

If your feet are "burning" after 5 miles you may need different shoes. Or, you need to walk more at those distances and it will stop. That is how fitness works. You put stress on parts of your body and it adapts. Nobody is going to discourage walking, even on concrete sidewalks. But if you want to be frail in your 80s by avoiding "stress[ing] your support structure" through something as incredibly low impact as walking, have at it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all, taking long walks (1+ hours) on pavement is awful on your knees & feet, even if you don’t feel the impact immediately.

Second, if not owning a car correlated with being fitter, those who do not own cars & whom are completely reliant on public transportation (including public buses) for their every need would be the fittest among us. Obviously, that is not the case.

Walking for an hour plus is awful on your knees and feet? The “impact” of WALKING? Is this some kind of troll post? How horrendously out of shape are you? Let me guess, if somebody does any amount of running their knees will explode by the time they are 60.

Unreal. Absent some health condition not of your own making, if you can’t walk 10 miles and you are under the age 65, you are doing life wrong. Most Americans can’t walk FIVE miles to save their life.

It’s not exclusively an American thing. I know plenty of sedentary Brits and continental Europeans. And even those that do walk a lot that just eat and drink poorly.

It’s like idiocracy sometimes. Where is the brawndo?

You missed the “on pavement” part. Versus on soft surfaces.

The fit neighbors I have can't walk 10 miles. Most do less than 5 on their big walks.

If that's all they do, they're not that fit. A 3-4 mile walk for me is a rest day. Walking medium-long distances is nothing for my 44 year old body, if not a relaxing reset.

I tend to be one of the posters on here that snaps back at people being snarky, but I agree with this 100%.

Absent some form of health impediment, a "fit" person under the age of 65 should be able to walk effectively indefinitely and certainly at least 10 miles.

Unfortunately, the percentages of people in both the US and UK that fit into that category are not very high.

NP, I walk a brisk 5 miles daily and enjoy a long hike, but 10 miles on pavement has my feet burning, especially at a good pace. Fitness (meaning muscle and cardio) has little to do with joints and feet, and it's really ignorant to pretend that walking on hard surfaces doesn't stress your support structure.

Re: walkability, let's be realistic about the free time people have. If I walk my kid to school and walk home, thats an hour round trip; another hour in the afternoon. I have to start work earlier and end later to do that. Then let's say I walk to the grocery, that adds an hour or more to my trip. And by then I've only walked like 6 slow miles so I probably need to do another hour, fast, for fitness. That's 4 hours plus work and home life and social life ... it doesn't all fit.

There have been some funny things posted on here, but this one is the best. The sentence itself is contradictory - what structures do you think are surrounding joints that actually make them function properly? Perhaps muscles and ligaments? Physical therapy works because of the adaptations sought to strengthen those structures - around the knee for example.

If your feet are "burning" after 5 miles you may need different shoes. Or, you need to walk more at those distances and it will stop. That is how fitness works. You put stress on parts of your body and it adapts. Nobody is going to discourage walking, even on concrete sidewalks. But if you want to be frail in your 80s by avoiding "stress[ing] your support structure" through something as incredibly low impact as walking, have at it.

Oh honey, not everyone has the same feet and anatomy. So cute that this how small your world view is. It like you have a miniature brain, adorable!

I was a nurse working in hospitals for 25 years and probably clocked 20k steps a day. I absolutely cannot walk 5 miles on concrete. Instead I have to swim to keep fit. My career taught me that you really don’t know everything about everyone and what might cause their body to react differently to different things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all, taking long walks (1+ hours) on pavement is awful on your knees & feet, even if you don’t feel the impact immediately.

Second, if not owning a car correlated with being fitter, those who do not own cars & whom are completely reliant on public transportation (including public buses) for their every need would be the fittest among us. Obviously, that is not the case.

Walking for an hour plus is awful on your knees and feet? The “impact” of WALKING? Is this some kind of troll post? How horrendously out of shape are you? Let me guess, if somebody does any amount of running their knees will explode by the time they are 60.

Unreal. Absent some health condition not of your own making, if you can’t walk 10 miles and you are under the age 65, you are doing life wrong. Most Americans can’t walk FIVE miles to save their life.

It’s not exclusively an American thing. I know plenty of sedentary Brits and continental Europeans. And even those that do walk a lot that just eat and drink poorly.

It’s like idiocracy sometimes. Where is the brawndo?

You missed the “on pavement” part. Versus on soft surfaces.

The fit neighbors I have can't walk 10 miles. Most do less than 5 on their big walks.

If that's all they do, they're not that fit. A 3-4 mile walk for me is a rest day. Walking medium-long distances is nothing for my 44 year old body, if not a relaxing reset.

I tend to be one of the posters on here that snaps back at people being snarky, but I agree with this 100%.

Absent some form of health impediment, a "fit" person under the age of 65 should be able to walk effectively indefinitely and certainly at least 10 miles.

Unfortunately, the percentages of people in both the US and UK that fit into that category are not very high.

NP, I walk a brisk 5 miles daily and enjoy a long hike, but 10 miles on pavement has my feet burning, especially at a good pace. Fitness (meaning muscle and cardio) has little to do with joints and feet, and it's really ignorant to pretend that walking on hard surfaces doesn't stress your support structure.

Re: walkability, let's be realistic about the free time people have. If I walk my kid to school and walk home, thats an hour round trip; another hour in the afternoon. I have to start work earlier and end later to do that. Then let's say I walk to the grocery, that adds an hour or more to my trip. And by then I've only walked like 6 slow miles so I probably need to do another hour, fast, for fitness. That's 4 hours plus work and home life and social life ... it doesn't all fit.

There have been some funny things posted on here, but this one is the best. The sentence itself is contradictory - what structures do you think are surrounding joints that actually make them function properly? Perhaps muscles and ligaments? Physical therapy works because of the adaptations sought to strengthen those structures - around the knee for example.

If your feet are "burning" after 5 miles you may need different shoes. Or, you need to walk more at those distances and it will stop. That is how fitness works. You put stress on parts of your body and it adapts. Nobody is going to discourage walking, even on concrete sidewalks. But if you want to be frail in your 80s by avoiding "stress[ing] your support structure" through something as incredibly low impact as walking, have at it.

Oh honey, not everyone has the same feet and anatomy. So cute that this how small your world view is. It like you have a miniature brain, adorable!

I was a nurse working in hospitals for 25 years and probably clocked 20k steps a day. I absolutely cannot walk 5 miles on concrete. Instead I have to swim to keep fit. My career taught me that you really don’t know everything about everyone and what might cause their body to react differently to different things.

Well, that would be an exception wouldn’t be? If you followed what I said you would have found I mentioned exceptional health issues multiple times. Most people sit at a desk all day and have no such problems.

I’m sorry you are dealing with these issues, but to pretend that is normal just isn’t honest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all, taking long walks (1+ hours) on pavement is awful on your knees & feet, even if you don’t feel the impact immediately.

Second, if not owning a car correlated with being fitter, those who do not own cars & whom are completely reliant on public transportation (including public buses) for their every need would be the fittest among us. Obviously, that is not the case.

Walking for an hour plus is awful on your knees and feet? The “impact” of WALKING? Is this some kind of troll post? How horrendously out of shape are you? Let me guess, if somebody does any amount of running their knees will explode by the time they are 60.

Unreal. Absent some health condition not of your own making, if you can’t walk 10 miles and you are under the age 65, you are doing life wrong. Most Americans can’t walk FIVE miles to save their life.

It’s not exclusively an American thing. I know plenty of sedentary Brits and continental Europeans. And even those that do walk a lot that just eat and drink poorly.

It’s like idiocracy sometimes. Where is the brawndo?

You missed the “on pavement” part. Versus on soft surfaces.

Uh, you know people run on pavement for an hour (or several hours) without issues. Where on earth are you getting the idea that it's bad to *walk* on pavement for ONE hour? One has to be really out of shape (or quite elderly) to feel "impact" from walking for an hour on pavement.

And on your 2nd comment about public transportation... people that take public transportation in cities are generally quite fit and active. People in cities are generally much more fit because of all the walking/stairs they do.

People that are completely dependent on public transportation are generally poor & fat.

Wow, what a deluded post. Tell me you don’t live in a city without telling me.

Living in DC, you can always tell when tourist season starts because there are so many large people around.

People who use public transportation are of all income levels, and are thinner because they have to walk to the bus stop/metro station at both ends of their trip, and for trips of less than about 1.5 miles it’s just not worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all, taking long walks (1+ hours) on pavement is awful on your knees & feet, even if you don’t feel the impact immediately.

Second, if not owning a car correlated with being fitter, those who do not own cars & whom are completely reliant on public transportation (including public buses) for their every need would be the fittest among us. Obviously, that is not the case.

Walking for an hour plus is awful on your knees and feet? The “impact” of WALKING? Is this some kind of troll post? How horrendously out of shape are you? Let me guess, if somebody does any amount of running their knees will explode by the time they are 60.

Unreal. Absent some health condition not of your own making, if you can’t walk 10 miles and you are under the age 65, you are doing life wrong. Most Americans can’t walk FIVE miles to save their life.

It’s not exclusively an American thing. I know plenty of sedentary Brits and continental Europeans. And even those that do walk a lot that just eat and drink poorly.

It’s like idiocracy sometimes. Where is the brawndo?

You missed the “on pavement” part. Versus on soft surfaces.

The fit neighbors I have can't walk 10 miles. Most do less than 5 on their big walks.

If that's all they do, they're not that fit. A 3-4 mile walk for me is a rest day. Walking medium-long distances is nothing for my 44 year old body, if not a relaxing reset.

I tend to be one of the posters on here that snaps back at people being snarky, but I agree with this 100%.

Absent some form of health impediment, a "fit" person under the age of 65 should be able to walk effectively indefinitely and certainly at least 10 miles.

Unfortunately, the percentages of people in both the US and UK that fit into that category are not very high.

NP, I walk a brisk 5 miles daily and enjoy a long hike, but 10 miles on pavement has my feet burning, especially at a good pace. Fitness (meaning muscle and cardio) has little to do with joints and feet, and it's really ignorant to pretend that walking on hard surfaces doesn't stress your support structure.

Re: walkability, let's be realistic about the free time people have. If I walk my kid to school and walk home, thats an hour round trip; another hour in the afternoon. I have to start work earlier and end later to do that. Then let's say I walk to the grocery, that adds an hour or more to my trip. And by then I've only walked like 6 slow miles so I probably need to do another hour, fast, for fitness. That's 4 hours plus work and home life and social life ... it doesn't all fit.

Um…. Fitness absolutely includes “joints and feet.” And also bone density.

What a funny post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all, taking long walks (1+ hours) on pavement is awful on your knees & feet, even if you don’t feel the impact immediately.

Second, if not owning a car correlated with being fitter, those who do not own cars & whom are completely reliant on public transportation (including public buses) for their every need would be the fittest among us. Obviously, that is not the case.

Walking for an hour plus is awful on your knees and feet? The “impact” of WALKING? Is this some kind of troll post? How horrendously out of shape are you? Let me guess, if somebody does any amount of running their knees will explode by the time they are 60.

Unreal. Absent some health condition not of your own making, if you can’t walk 10 miles and you are under the age 65, you are doing life wrong. Most Americans can’t walk FIVE miles to save their life.

It’s not exclusively an American thing. I know plenty of sedentary Brits and continental Europeans. And even those that do walk a lot that just eat and drink poorly.

It’s like idiocracy sometimes. Where is the brawndo?

You missed the “on pavement” part. Versus on soft surfaces.

The fit neighbors I have can't walk 10 miles. Most do less than 5 on their big walks.

If that's all they do, they're not that fit. A 3-4 mile walk for me is a rest day. Walking medium-long distances is nothing for my 44 year old body, if not a relaxing reset.

I tend to be one of the posters on here that snaps back at people being snarky, but I agree with this 100%.

Absent some form of health impediment, a "fit" person under the age of 65 should be able to walk effectively indefinitely and certainly at least 10 miles.

Unfortunately, the percentages of people in both the US and UK that fit into that category are not very high.

NP, I walk a brisk 5 miles daily and enjoy a long hike, but 10 miles on pavement has my feet burning, especially at a good pace. Fitness (meaning muscle and cardio) has little to do with joints and feet, and it's really ignorant to pretend that walking on hard surfaces doesn't stress your support structure.

Re: walkability, let's be realistic about the free time people have. If I walk my kid to school and walk home, thats an hour round trip; another hour in the afternoon. I have to start work earlier and end later to do that. Then let's say I walk to the grocery, that adds an hour or more to my trip. And by then I've only walked like 6 slow miles so I probably need to do another hour, fast, for fitness. That's 4 hours plus work and home life and social life ... it doesn't all fit.

There have been some funny things posted on here, but this one is the best. The sentence itself is contradictory - what structures do you think are surrounding joints that actually make them function properly? Perhaps muscles and ligaments? Physical therapy works because of the adaptations sought to strengthen those structures - around the knee for example.

If your feet are "burning" after 5 miles you may need different shoes. Or, you need to walk more at those distances and it will stop. That is how fitness works. You put stress on parts of your body and it adapts. Nobody is going to discourage walking, even on concrete sidewalks. But if you want to be frail in your 80s by avoiding "stress[ing] your support structure" through something as incredibly low impact as walking, have at it.

Oh honey, not everyone has the same feet and anatomy. So cute that this how small your world view is. It like you have a miniature brain, adorable!

I was a nurse working in hospitals for 25 years and probably clocked 20k steps a day. I absolutely cannot walk 5 miles on concrete. Instead I have to swim to keep fit. My career taught me that you really don’t know everything about everyone and what might cause their body to react differently to different things.

Ah… so some people have the special “non
-pavement anatomy.” How silly of PP not to realize.

[Anonymous]

All we need now is a TikTok about how sidewalks are ruining knees and some brawndo and the cycle will be complete

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all, taking long walks (1+ hours) on pavement is awful on your knees & feet, even if you don’t feel the impact immediately.

Second, if not owning a car correlated with being fitter, those who do not own cars & whom are completely reliant on public transportation (including public buses) for their every need would be the fittest among us. Obviously, that is not the case.

Walking for an hour plus is awful on your knees and feet? The “impact” of WALKING? Is this some kind of troll post? How horrendously out of shape are you? Let me guess, if somebody does any amount of running their knees will explode by the time they are 60.

Unreal. Absent some health condition not of your own making, if you can’t walk 10 miles and you are under the age 65, you are doing life wrong. Most Americans can’t walk FIVE miles to save their life.

It’s not exclusively an American thing. I know plenty of sedentary Brits and continental Europeans. And even those that do walk a lot that just eat and drink poorly.

It’s like idiocracy sometimes. Where is the brawndo?

You missed the “on pavement” part. Versus on soft surfaces.

The fit neighbors I have can't walk 10 miles. Most do less than 5 on their big walks.

If that's all they do, they're not that fit. A 3-4 mile walk for me is a rest day. Walking medium-long distances is nothing for my 44 year old body, if not a relaxing reset.

I tend to be one of the posters on here that snaps back at people being snarky, but I agree with this 100%.

Absent some form of health impediment, a "fit" person under the age of 65 should be able to walk effectively indefinitely and certainly at least 10 miles.

Unfortunately, the percentages of people in both the US and UK that fit into that category are not very high.

NP, I walk a brisk 5 miles daily and enjoy a long hike, but 10 miles on pavement has my feet burning, especially at a good pace. Fitness (meaning muscle and cardio) has little to do with joints and feet, and it's really ignorant to pretend that walking on hard surfaces doesn't stress your support structure.

Re: walkability, let's be realistic about the free time people have. If I walk my kid to school and walk home, thats an hour round trip; another hour in the afternoon. I have to start work earlier and end later to do that. Then let's say I walk to the grocery, that adds an hour or more to my trip. And by then I've only walked like 6 slow miles so I probably need to do another hour, fast, for fitness. That's 4 hours plus work and home life and social life ... it doesn't all fit.

There have been some funny things posted on here, but this one is the best. The sentence itself is contradictory - what structures do you think are surrounding joints that actually make them function properly? Perhaps muscles and ligaments? Physical therapy works because of the adaptations sought to strengthen those structures - around the knee for example.

If your feet are "burning" after 5 miles you may need different shoes. Or, you need to walk more at those distances and it will stop. That is how fitness works. You put stress on parts of your body and it adapts. Nobody is going to discourage walking, even on concrete sidewalks. But if you want to be frail in your 80s by avoiding "stress[ing] your support structure" through something as incredibly low impact as walking, have at it.

Oh honey, not everyone has the same feet and anatomy. So cute that this how small your world view is. It like you have a miniature brain, adorable!

I was a nurse working in hospitals for 25 years and probably clocked 20k steps a day. I absolutely cannot walk 5 miles on concrete. Instead I have to swim to keep fit. My career taught me that you really don’t know everything about everyone and what might cause their body to react differently to different things.

Ah… so some people have the special “non
-pavement anatomy.” How silly of PP not to realize.

I'm not the nurse and yes, healthy people are put together differently in so many small but impactful ways, including for example having their left leg be slightly shorter than their right or their hips be angled in different ways or their arches especially high or low. It all affects movement. Also many have stress injuries, or issues developed in childhood, that cannot be "walked off." Nor are custom shoes a practical solution as PP implied, even in the limited situations where they would help.

It's wild how ignorant you are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all, taking long walks (1+ hours) on pavement is awful on your knees & feet, even if you don’t feel the impact immediately.

Second, if not owning a car correlated with being fitter, those who do not own cars & whom are completely reliant on public transportation (including public buses) for their every need would be the fittest among us. Obviously, that is not the case.

Walking for an hour plus is awful on your knees and feet? The “impact” of WALKING? Is this some kind of troll post? How horrendously out of shape are you? Let me guess, if somebody does any amount of running their knees will explode by the time they are 60.

Unreal. Absent some health condition not of your own making, if you can’t walk 10 miles and you are under the age 65, you are doing life wrong. Most Americans can’t walk FIVE miles to save their life.

It’s not exclusively an American thing. I know plenty of sedentary Brits and continental Europeans. And even those that do walk a lot that just eat and drink poorly.

It’s like idiocracy sometimes. Where is the brawndo?

You missed the “on pavement” part. Versus on soft surfaces.

The fit neighbors I have can't walk 10 miles. Most do less than 5 on their big walks.

If that's all they do, they're not that fit. A 3-4 mile walk for me is a rest day. Walking medium-long distances is nothing for my 44 year old body, if not a relaxing reset.

I tend to be one of the posters on here that snaps back at people being snarky, but I agree with this 100%.

Absent some form of health impediment, a "fit" person under the age of 65 should be able to walk effectively indefinitely and certainly at least 10 miles.

Unfortunately, the percentages of people in both the US and UK that fit into that category are not very high.

NP, I walk a brisk 5 miles daily and enjoy a long hike, but 10 miles on pavement has my feet burning, especially at a good pace. Fitness (meaning muscle and cardio) has little to do with joints and feet, and it's really ignorant to pretend that walking on hard surfaces doesn't stress your support structure.

Re: walkability, let's be realistic about the free time people have. If I walk my kid to school and walk home, thats an hour round trip; another hour in the afternoon. I have to start work earlier and end later to do that. Then let's say I walk to the grocery, that adds an hour or more to my trip. And by then I've only walked like 6 slow miles so I probably need to do another hour, fast, for fitness. That's 4 hours plus work and home life and social life ... it doesn't all fit.

There have been some funny things posted on here, but this one is the best. The sentence itself is contradictory - what structures do you think are surrounding joints that actually make them function properly? Perhaps muscles and ligaments? Physical therapy works because of the adaptations sought to strengthen those structures - around the knee for example.

If your feet are "burning" after 5 miles you may need different shoes. Or, you need to walk more at those distances and it will stop. That is how fitness works. You put stress on parts of your body and it adapts. Nobody is going to discourage walking, even on concrete sidewalks. But if you want to be frail in your 80s by avoiding "stress[ing] your support structure" through something as incredibly low impact as walking, have at it.

Oh honey, not everyone has the same feet and anatomy. So cute that this how small your world view is. It like you have a miniature brain, adorable!

I was a nurse working in hospitals for 25 years and probably clocked 20k steps a day. I absolutely cannot walk 5 miles on concrete. Instead I have to swim to keep fit. My career taught me that you really don’t know everything about everyone and what might cause their body to react differently to different things.

Ah… so some people have the special “non
-pavement anatomy.” How silly of PP not to realize.

I'm not the nurse and yes, healthy people are put together differently in so many small but impactful ways, including for example having their left leg be slightly shorter than their right or their hips be angled in different ways or their arches especially high or low. It all affects movement. Also many have stress injuries, or issues developed in childhood, that cannot be "walked off." Nor are custom shoes a practical solution as PP implied, even in the limited situations where they would help.

It's wild how ignorant you are.

These are all narrow exceptions.

This forum is so dumb with the desire to make exceptions the rule. It’s WILD. This whole thread is about walking in general.

People on the US and the UK on average have none of these issues. They are just fat and lazy. And for that reason they are exceptional, which is why we are discussing them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all, taking long walks (1+ hours) on pavement is awful on your knees & feet, even if you don’t feel the impact immediately.

Second, if not owning a car correlated with being fitter, those who do not own cars & whom are completely reliant on public transportation (including public buses) for their every need would be the fittest among us. Obviously, that is not the case.

Walking for an hour plus is awful on your knees and feet? The “impact” of WALKING? Is this some kind of troll post? How horrendously out of shape are you? Let me guess, if somebody does any amount of running their knees will explode by the time they are 60.

Unreal. Absent some health condition not of your own making, if you can’t walk 10 miles and you are under the age 65, you are doing life wrong. Most Americans can’t walk FIVE miles to save their life.

It’s not exclusively an American thing. I know plenty of sedentary Brits and continental Europeans. And even those that do walk a lot that just eat and drink poorly.

It’s like idiocracy sometimes. Where is the brawndo?

You missed the “on pavement” part. Versus on soft surfaces.

Uh, you know people run on pavement for an hour (or several hours) without issues. Where on earth are you getting the idea that it's bad to *walk* on pavement for ONE hour? One has to be really out of shape (or quite elderly) to feel "impact" from walking for an hour on pavement.

And on your 2nd comment about public transportation... people that take public transportation in cities are generally quite fit and active. People in cities are generally much more fit because of all the walking/stairs they do.

People that are completely dependent on public transportation are generally poor & fat.

Wow, what a deluded post. Tell me you don’t live in a city without telling me.

Living in DC, you can always tell when tourist season starts because there are so many large people around.

People who use public transportation are of all income levels, and are thinner because they have to walk to the bus stop/metro station at both ends of their trip, and for trips of less than about 1.5 miles it’s just not worth it.

I didn’t say “uses public transportation,” I said “completely dependent on it.” Meaning, they take three public buses to their job on the other side of the DMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all, taking long walks (1+ hours) on pavement is awful on your knees & feet, even if you don’t feel the impact immediately.

Second, if not owning a car correlated with being fitter, those who do not own cars & whom are completely reliant on public transportation (including public buses) for their every need would be the fittest among us. Obviously, that is not the case.

Walking for an hour plus is awful on your knees and feet? The “impact” of WALKING? Is this some kind of troll post? How horrendously out of shape are you? Let me guess, if somebody does any amount of running their knees will explode by the time they are 60.

Unreal. Absent some health condition not of your own making, if you can’t walk 10 miles and you are under the age 65, you are doing life wrong. Most Americans can’t walk FIVE miles to save their life.

It’s not exclusively an American thing. I know plenty of sedentary Brits and continental Europeans. And even those that do walk a lot that just eat and drink poorly.

It’s like idiocracy sometimes. Where is the brawndo?

You missed the “on pavement” part. Versus on soft surfaces.

The fit neighbors I have can't walk 10 miles. Most do less than 5 on their big walks.

If that's all they do, they're not that fit. A 3-4 mile walk for me is a rest day. Walking medium-long distances is nothing for my 44 year old body, if not a relaxing reset.

I tend to be one of the posters on here that snaps back at people being snarky, but I agree with this 100%.

Absent some form of health impediment, a "fit" person under the age of 65 should be able to walk effectively indefinitely and certainly at least 10 miles.

Unfortunately, the percentages of people in both the US and UK that fit into that category are not very high.

NP, I walk a brisk 5 miles daily and enjoy a long hike, but 10 miles on pavement has my feet burning, especially at a good pace. Fitness (meaning muscle and cardio) has little to do with joints and feet, and it's really ignorant to pretend that walking on hard surfaces doesn't stress your support structure.

Re: walkability, let's be realistic about the free time people have. If I walk my kid to school and walk home, thats an hour round trip; another hour in the afternoon. I have to start work earlier and end later to do that. Then let's say I walk to the grocery, that adds an hour or more to my trip. And by then I've only walked like 6 slow miles so I probably need to do another hour, fast, for fitness. That's 4 hours plus work and home life and social life ... it doesn't all fit.

There have been some funny things posted on here, but this one is the best. The sentence itself is contradictory - what structures do you think are surrounding joints that actually make them function properly? Perhaps muscles and ligaments? Physical therapy works because of the adaptations sought to strengthen those structures - around the knee for example.

If your feet are "burning" after 5 miles you may need different shoes. Or, you need to walk more at those distances and it will stop. That is how fitness works. You put stress on parts of your body and it adapts. Nobody is going to discourage walking, even on concrete sidewalks. But if you want to be frail in your 80s by avoiding "stress[ing] your support structure" through something as incredibly low impact as walking, have at it.

Oh honey, not everyone has the same feet and anatomy. So cute that this how small your world view is. It like you have a miniature brain, adorable!

I was a nurse working in hospitals for 25 years and probably clocked 20k steps a day. I absolutely cannot walk 5 miles on concrete. Instead I have to swim to keep fit. My career taught me that you really don’t know everything about everyone and what might cause their body to react differently to different things.

Ah… so some people have the special “non
-pavement anatomy.” How silly of PP not to realize.

I'm not the nurse and yes, healthy people are put together differently in so many small but impactful ways, including for example having their left leg be slightly shorter than their right or their hips be angled in different ways or their arches especially high or low. It all affects movement. Also many have stress injuries, or issues developed in childhood, that cannot be "walked off." Nor are custom shoes a practical solution as PP implied, even in the limited situations where they would help.

It's wild how ignorant you are.

These are all narrow exceptions.

This forum is so dumb with the desire to make exceptions the rule. It’s WILD. This whole thread is about walking in general.

People on the US and the UK on average have none of these issues. They are just fat and lazy. And for that reason they are exceptional, which is why we are discussing them.

Let’s start with no unregulated the US food supply is.

[Anonymous]

Love how this thread started out entertaining and interesting and devolved into mean and competitive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not even the suburbs, people won’t even walk in a shopping center. I’ve seen people circle 5 or 6 times trying to get a parking space ip front. I’ve parked and inside shopping by the time they actually get one. So lazy and most are overweight and need to walk a little (or a lot!).

I don’t own a car, walk most everywhere, and am fat. My sister and her husband have a car and drive everywhere, and are skinny. Poof, there goes your theory…

The plural of anecdote isn’t data, dear.