10,000 steps to marketing Swiss Cheese

After deciding to walk to better well-being, our columnist discovers that Swiss Cheese shouldn’t be sliced the same way across industries …

As the end of the year approaches, many of us face mounting stress: holiday planning, gift lists, home decorations, and perhaps ambitious culinary plans to impress our families (or at least the mother-in-law). For others, this time brings reflection on the past year’s accomplishments, successes, and failures.

Our household is no different. My family often discusses how quickly 2024 has “flown by”, what we’ve accomplished, and what goals will shift to 2025. The one thing we’ve unanimously agreed won’t accompany us into the new year is our current weight. Yes, in my last article, I preached about “numbers not being the only parameter that should matter”, but that was before I stepped onto the scale. 

In all seriousness, my husband and I agreed to focus less on kilograms and more on lifestyle changes. We decided, quite literally, to step into a healthier lifestyle, beginning with the purchase of sports watches equipped with pedometers.

The truth about 10,000 steps

According to many online influencers, walking is one of the best ways to lose weight effortlessly. Registered dietitian Emily Lachtrupp confirms on EatingWell.com that walking can improve mood and brain function by releasing endorphins – “feel-good chemicals that boost mood and reduce stress and anxiety”. Walking improves cognitive function and memory, ensures better mobility, supports healthy weight loss, isn’t constrained by timeframes, and requires no special equipment. What’s not to love? 

However, upon starting this journey, I discovered something surprising. While 10,000 steps equate to about eight kilometres or an hour and 40 minutes of walking (depending on stride length and speed), the origin of this target number wasn’t what I expected. I had always believed it was established by a US cardiac association – something I’d learned during my university years. Nearly 20 years later, I discovered this “healthy number” was actually a marketing scheme.

The 10,000-step goal didn’t emerge from thorough scientific research, but from a marketing campaign for a pedometer prior to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Apparently, the marketing team for the Manpo-Kei pedometer chose this number because to their eyes the Japanese symbol for 10,000 (万) resembled a walking person. 

Recent research – as explained by Stanford Lifestyle Medicine Movement and Exercise pillar member Dr. Corey Rovzar – suggests that 8,000 steps are sufficient to show significant health benefits and lower cardiovascular and all-cause mortality risk. However, he emphasises that “more important than hitting an exact number is that you’re moving more throughout the day”.

The Swiss Cheese model: another borrowed truth?

I’m not making a fuss about a difference of 2,000 steps, but rather about the untruths that so many of us think are facts – particularly the Swiss Cheese Model in occupational health and safety (OHS). Recently, while reading a medical journal, I discovered that this model, which I had always associated with health and safety, was actually introduced 25 years ago by James Reason in a British Medical Journal to “explain the occurrence of system failures, such as medical mishaps”. 

The model uses cheese slices as a metaphor to illustrate how complex organisational errors can be prevented through multiple layers of defence, barriers, and safeguards. According to Reason, high-technology systems have many defensive layers: some engineered (alarms, physical barriers, and automatic shutdowns), others relying on people (surgeons, anaesthetists, and control room operators), and still others depending on procedures and administrative controls.

In an ideal world, these layers would be intact and sufficient for safeguarding. However, reality presents “holes” in these defences – some intentional (like when someone works despite being too tired) and others unintentional (such as when employees lack proper training but proceed with tasks anyway). These “holes” are “continually opening, shutting, and shifting their locations”, according to Reason. “The presence of holes in any one ‘slice’ does not normally cause a bad outcome. Usually, this can happen only when the holes in many layers momentarily line up to permit a trajectory of accident opportunity – bringing hazards into damaging contact with victims.”

The iCue Causation Model: A more complete picture

Recognising the limitations of the original Swiss Cheese Model – its linear nature, a lack of human-centric considerations, and a disregard for the fact that the “holes” are not uniform, steady, or planned out – Brian Darlington and Dr Robert Long (the founder of Social Psychology of Risk) developed the iCue Causation Model. This adaptation better reflects the complexity of workplace safety by incorporating psychological and cultural aspects of human existence.

The iCue model uses arrows to represent various types of problems, which move through the cheese slices in a very irregular, unsystematic, and unscripted way. All of the arrows are black in colour when the problem appears, but are later classified into different categories – each with an assigned colour:

• Pink arrows for workspace-related physical issues.
• Yellow arrows for psychological factors (headspace).
• Green arrows for cultural aspects (groupspace).
• Black arrows for “wicked problems” that defy easy categorisation (these were purposefully left black, as they are characterised as unsolvable in Social Psychology of Risk).

The model notably includes a confused mouse, symbolising life’s inherent unpredictability and messiness. Unlike its predecessor, the iCue Causation Model was created specifically for the health and safety industry by professionals with over 30 years of experience in the field.

Beware the unverified

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with borrowing concepts across disciplines or setting ambitious goals like 10,000 daily steps, we must be careful about accepting and spreading unverified “truths”. As the saying goes, “a lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth”. Whether it’s step counts or safety models, we should verify our knowledge through practical experience and expert insight, regardless of whether it takes 8,000 or 10,000 steps to get there.