# "The average American walks only 1.4 miles PER WEEK" Can this possibly be true? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 8, 2002, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393 "2002-10-08T17:04:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393/21 "2002-10-09T00:37:53Z")
I read that book a while back and I must admit that statistic boggled my brain. I have it right here, actually. What caused even more bogglement was this passage: > [@](#): > > Not long after we moved here, we had the people next door round for dinner and – I swear this is true – they drove. > > I was astounded (I recall asking them jokingly if they used a light aircraft to get to the supermarket, which simply drew blank looks and the mental scratching of my name from all future invitation lists), but I have since come to the realisation that there was nothing especially odd in their driving less than a couple of hundred feet to visit us. Nobody walks anywhere in America nowadays. Can this be true? Or was the pressure of a column to fill leading ol’ Bill to stretch the truth a little? Anyway, Bryson credits the 1.4 miles a week statistic to “a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley”. He adds: “85% of people in the United States are ‘essentially’ sedentary and 35% are ‘totally sedentary’. The average American walks less than 75 miles a year – about 1.4 miles a week, barely 350 yards a day. I’m no stranger to sloth myself, but that’s appallingly little. I rack up more mileage than that just looking for the channel changer.” 😃 I love Bryson’s writing… for an American he seems to have a very British sense of humour. I get the impression he’s more popular over here (the UK) than in the US, chiefly because the Americans don’t like his making fun of them. Is that true? ---
**Author:** ![Motog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85e7bf/32.png) [@Motog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motog)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393/22 "2002-10-09T07:51:04Z")
[Here’s](http://blueprint.bluecrossmn.com/topic/bryson)a link to entire Bill Bryson article for those who are interested. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393/23 "2002-10-09T10:29:43Z")
Weird. That link misses out the whole first two paragraphs, which I quoted from the book above. Maybe Bill now admits it was BS, and expunged it from the record 😉 ---
**Author:** ![bifar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bifar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bifar)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393/24 "2002-10-09T10:58:08Z")
In my experience Bryson never lets facts get in the way of his opinion. He often cites secondary evidence, such as a survey he read in some UK newspaper or that a friend of him told him about. He knows that people in the UK like to feel superior to ugly Americans, so he tells them that all Americans are all fat and stupid. I’m fond of his writing style but the reason why he’s so popular is that he panders to popular opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393/25 "2002-10-09T12:50:16Z")
I be polite and say Americans aren’t stupid 😃 – but y’all are definitely fat. The U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey is being released this week by the CDC. It should be on their website, or at [www.jama.com](http://www.jama.com) It shows that roughly 30 percent of Americans are overweight, with an additional 29 % being obese, and about 5% more being morbidly obese. That means 2/3 of American adults weigh more than they should. Some ethnic groups are even heavier-- with African American women approaching a 50% obesity rate. With that many heavy people, and a population around 300 million, it’s easy to see that even if every american Doper ran a marathon every day you could still get a 1.4 mile/week national average for walking. ---
**Author:** ![Kamelion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8baadc/32.png) [@Kamelion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamelion)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393/26 "2002-10-09T13:16:41Z")
Well I’m Australian and I’d say I’d easliy get that distance in a day walking… But I’m a student and I have to. Our school is pretty scattered and on a day I might have classes on both far sides of the school. Add to that going to lunch and back twice, you’ve got 1.4 miles _easily_ in a day, let alone a week. But then if you live in an office, and your whole day including lunch is in the same place… I can see how you wouldn’t get it so easily… I also live in a very small town and am on the opposite side of town to the school - and I can still ride there on a bicycle in five minutes. So I’d say I actually travel more distance via bike or foot than via car (excluding those days when I have to leave town and travel 60 kilometres plus to get to the next big one!) ---
**Author:** ![Rhum\_Runner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rhum\_Runner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhum_Runner)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393/27 "2002-10-09T13:24:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Barbarian \* > \*\*With that many heavy people, and a population around 300 million, it’s easy to see that even if every american Doper ran a marathon every day you could still get a 1.4 mile/week national average for walking. \*\* No, it is not easy to see. Being overweight does not mean bed-ridden. The 1.4 number equates to less than 400 yards per day, seven days a week. There is no way the averrage is that low. I havn’t counted, but just this morning walking around my apartment I bet I have done an easy 100 yards of walking. This is in 1 hour of being awake, in a small apartment. Many people walk miles and miles per day, to bring the average down to less than 1/4 mile per day we would need 10s of people just sitting in a nutrient tank for every one of those that walks. This number is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393/28 "2002-10-09T14:47:40Z")
The number is probably not attempting to estimate the distance walking around your house or place of employment, or, for that matter, inside grocery stores or malls. The number probably came from a survey that only questioned how far people walked outside, for recreation, or as a mode of transit between two points. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393/29 "2002-10-09T14:52:56Z")
The number is probably not attempting to estimate the distance walking around your house or place of employment, or, for that matter, inside grocery stores or malls. The number probably came from a survey that only questioned how far people walked outside, for recreation, or as a mode of transit between two points. ---
**Author:** ![Corrvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bbce88/32.png) [@Corrvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corrvin)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393/30 "2002-10-09T15:26:44Z")
> [@](#): > > With that many heavy people, and a population around 300 million, it’s easy to see that even if every american Doper ran a marathon every day you could still get a 1.4 mile/week national average for walking. Well, considering that every really overweight person I know walks for fitness (because, frankly, it’s too tough on the joints to do anything more strenuous with a lot of extra weight) I don’t see why a group composed of heavier people might not walk MORE than a group composed of lighter people, who possibly play tennis or basketball or act in porn films or something for their exercise. Corr ---
**Author:** ![owlstretchingtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/958977/32.png) [@owlstretchingtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlstretchingtime)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393/31 "2002-10-09T16:34:48Z")
The statistic was quoted in terms of Bill Bryson walking (some of) the Appalachian TRail. It was followed by his (funny) description of attempting to walk about half a mile to a restaurant and finding it next to impossible as the town had been laid out to make being a pedestrian impossible. I took it to mean walking to and from work, shops, bars etc rather than purely recreational walking or wandering around one’s house (I have walked further than 1.4 miles in my flat looking for my keys). It is also mentioned in the context of the number of human zeppelins in America (the first thing ANY foreigner notices when we come to the USA). owl ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393/32 "2002-10-09T20:41:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Corrvin \* > \*\* > > Well, considering that every really overweight person I know walks for fitness \*\* Really? Every overweight person I know drives to the convenience store to buy more junk food. Even if it’s less than 2 blocks. In fact, my mother once yelled at me (many, many years ago) because I walked to the store to get some milk, instead of driving. Look at the numbers. About 100 million Americans are overweight. Another 100 million are obese. They didn’t get that way by taking the stairs. ---
**Author:** ![flapcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@flapcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flapcats)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393/33 "2002-10-10T22:39:03Z")
Can we get Mr Bryson to see this and cite? I cycle to work, I probably don’t _walk_ that many miles. My SO is going to climb up Machu Picchu for charity - So I get about 10 - 15 miles in every weekend supporting her training etc. Apart from that, I sit at my desk like a monkey. ook! I must get a few miles in at the studio though: Desk, server, desk, server, pub, desk, server, pub etc - it’s at least 5 meters. (to the server, not the pub.) ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393/34 "2002-10-10T23:37:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yabob \* > \*\*The number is probably not attempting to estimate the distance walking around your house or place of employment, or, for that matter, inside grocery stores or malls. The number probably came from a survey that only questioned how far people walked outside, for recreation, or as a mode of transit between two points. \*\* Well, then, I could see it. No, I probably walk less than a mile/week for recreation or as a mode of transportation. I work 10 miles from home (because it can’t be walked along the driving route, add another 4 miles if I chose to walk or bike it). My grocery store is 2 miles from home. Most places I shop for other goods/services are at least 2 miles from where I live. My friends do not live in my neighborhood - so, they’re of sufficient distance to drive somewhere to meet them or drive to their places. My work is about a mile from anywhere so I’ll drive my errands at lunch. (When I worked somewhere more centrally located, I walked a lot more). And I hate walking for recreation (though I averagely run about 15 miles a week for fitness/recreation). So, yes, if walking only counts if it is done as a mode of transportation - then, it is not improbable that many people like me don’t do it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-average-american-walks-only-1-4-miles-per-week-can-this-possibly-be-true/131393.md?page=1)