Hitting the targets

摘要

LIVING to a ripe old age owes a fair amount to luck, but if science can tell us anything about health, it is that our judgement matters, too. The way we live our lives and the way we treat our bodies can make a huge difference to our chances of having a long and healthy life. This is the basic message encoded in the generic health targets that we all carry in our heads: five pieces of fruit or veg a day, 8 hours of sleep, 10,000 steps, 2000 calories and so on. Yet on closer inspection, many of the best-known nuggets of health advice owe more to marketing and folklore than they do to science. The 10,000 steps per day that so many people aim to take seem to have been largely plucked from nowhere. Even dentists can't tell you why they recommend brushing specifically for 2 minutes, twice a day, as our feature on page 38 reveals.