Saturday, July 7, 2018

How many steps does a megastore clerk walk?


 
It is recommended that we walk about 10,000 steps every day for our health.

 A friend of mine used to work for a suburban megastore as a clerk. Clerks had to try all the goods in the store. If they were selling a new type of dog food, he had to eat it so that he could describe its taste to the customers.

 One day, they started selling a new pedometer. He tried it of course. He walked around the huge store all day as he usually did. From the pedometer, he learned that he walked over 30,000 steps a day.

 Once we had a small shopping arcade in my town. There were many privately owned stores in it then. Today, it is a deserted shopping street. If the arcade were still in use, I could have walked around it and bought products from it every day. I might have walked about 10,000 steps. Instead, I now drive a car to a megastore every week, and I go to a gym for exercise.

 The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries has announced that about 8 million people have limited access to shopping facilities in Japan. People who can’t drive cars can’t go to the suburbs to shop. Someday, when I have to give up driving, I could become one of them.

 We might be making a terrible mistake.

Picture by freehandz