Popular Health Claims, Such as a Woman’s Fertility Dropping at Age 30, Are Wildly Overblown
Why do fitness device makers claim you need to take 10,000 steps every day? Do you also really need to drink eight glasses of water daily? The scientific basis for popular health claims is often thin. A piece in the New York Times, for example, notes that the idea of 10,000 steps was based more on marketing—it was the name of an early pedometer—than science. Data point to clear benefits from moderate exercise—perhaps 7,000 steps or so but not necessarily more.
It's worthwhile to dig a bit into often heard health maxims before accepting them literally. You can sometimes find a nugget of truth that has become seriously exaggerated, or you discover that a claim stems from outdated and poorly applied evidence. The latter is what happened with a famous and specious claim about female fertility.
But, as Jean M. Twenge reported in 2013 in the Atlantic, the claim is based on very sparse data, much of them of dubious quality or relevance. The notion stems largely from a 2004 paper based on records from 1670 through 1830. Many things have changed since then, including medical care and nutrition. In wealthier nations, people are now healthier overall and likely to be more fertile for longer periods of their lives.
Like the female clock or the 10,000 steps, many health beliefs have shallow and flimsy roots. But sometimes the wisdom of the crowd is supported by facts: most of us do need around eight hours of sleep a night, for instance. So where does this leave someone trying to make sense of what they hear or read?
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