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4 Working Nurse l WorkingNurse.com July 15–August 12, 2019 ON THE QUICK Nursing & Healthcare News 10,000 Steps? Sorting out the headlines about walking and fitness goals B y now, you've probably heard about a new study suppos- edly debunking the popular fitness goal of walking 10,000 steps a day. However, the clickbait headlines may be miss- ing the study's point. 7,500 = 10,000 The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, analyzed data from 16,741 women who participated in the Women's Health Study between 2011 and 2015. An earlier paper by the same authors had found substantial reductions in all-causes mortality — as much as 70 percent — for older women who increased their physical activity levels. For the new study, the authors reexamined the data and found that while increased physical activity did correlate with reduced mortality, those longevity benefits actually leveled off above about 7,500 steps/day. All-causes mortality for older women who walked 10,000 steps a day was no better than for those who did only 7,500 steps/day. (The study did not consider younger adults, nor did it analyze other health effects besides mortality rates.) The Japanese Manpo-Meter Lead author I-Min Lee, M.D., MPH, Sc.D., notes that the 10,000- step/day figure actually originated with the trade name for Japan's first commercially available pedometer, the Yamasa Manpo- Meter ("10,000 Step Meter"). Introduced in 1965, this popular device was so named because its watch-like dial allowed users to count up to 10,000 steps at a time, which the company's ads suggested as a standard goal for fitness enthu- siasts and walking clubs. While the company probably didn't choose that figure based on any spe- cific scientific evidence, later research found that 10,000 steps WAS a useful target for improving fitness and preventing obesity. In a highly influential 1993 paper, Yoshiro Hatano, Ph.D., a pro- fessor at Kyushu University of Health and Welfare, concluded that 10,000 steps/day represented about twice the average activity level of the typical sedentary adult Japanese man and would burn an additional 300 calories/day. Every LIttle Bit Helps The most important takeaway from the recent study is that becoming more active is still worthwhile even if the best you can manage is well short of 10,000 steps/day. "I'm not saying don't get 10,000 steps," Lee recently told The Atlantic. "If you can get 10,000 steps, more power to you. But, if you're someone who's sedentary, even a very modest increase brings you significant health benefits." WN Children's Hospital Rankings CHLA and UCLA among 2019–20 Best Hospitals C ongratulations are due to Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) and UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital: Both made the U.S. News & World Report 2019–20 Best Children's Hospitals rankings. California's Best Only 84 U.S. hospitals earned a place on the 2019–20 U.S. News & World Report Best Children's Hospital list — and only 10 earned a place on the Best Children's Hospitals Honor Roll. Among them is Children's Hospital Los Angeles, which was the top-ranked hospi- tal in California, the best in the western region and the fifth highest-rated chil- dren's hospital in the nation. CHLA ranked among the top 10 hospi- tals nationwide in seven of the 10 special- ty areas U.S. News rated — including car- diology and heart surgery; diabetes and endocrinology; orthopedics; gastroen- terology and GI surgery; neurology and neurosurgery; neonatology; and cancer — and was among the top 20 in the other three areas. "It's an honor to be selected by U.S. News as a top-five children's hospital in the United States and the best in the western U.S.," says Nancy Lee, RN, MSN, NEA-BC, CHLA's senior vice president and chief clinical officer. "Our nurses con- tribute mightily to the overall high quality of clinical care and outcomes we deliver to our patients. I am proud of the dedica- tion and performance exhibited by our entire patient care services team." Strong Showing UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital also made a strong showing in the 2019–20 list, ranking in the top 20 nationwide for three specialties: gastroenterology and GI surgery, nephrology and orthopedics. You can read more about the rankings and methodology at health.usnews.com. WN MARKETING BEFORE RESEARCH A 1965 Japanese newspaper ad for the Manpo-Meter, an analog pedometer that could count up to 10,000 steps at a time. For direct links to the websites cited, find these articles at WorkingNurse.com