Why We Buy Cheap Stuff - Then Regret It & Important Clues About Your Health

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Why We Buy Cheap Stuff - Then Regret It & Important Clues About Your Health"

Podcast: Something You Should Know
Host: Mike Carruthers
Guests: Wendy Wallison (historian, author of A History of Cheap Stuff in America), Juliette Starrett (attorney, athlete, podcaster, co-author of Built to Move)
Release Date: February 5, 2026

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Overview

This episode explores two core topics:

1. The psychological, cultural, and historical reasons behind America's obsession with cheap, disposable goods—aka "crap"—and why we tend to regret these purchases.
2. Surprising, practical insights into movement, exercise, and health, challenging modern assumptions about fitness routines and sharing actionable tips for everyday wellness.

Mike Carruthers guides conversations with experts Wendy Wallison and Juliette Starrett, uncovering both amusing and sobering truths about our buying habits and lifestyle choices.

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Part 1: Why We Buy (and Keep) Cheap Stuff

Defining “Crap” (04:23–05:00)

• Wendy Wallison: "To me, crap consists of goods that are cheaply made, made not to last, made of inferior products, and are what I call cynically produced. They often promise more things than they actually deliver and end up disappointing people in the end." [04:27]
• The definition is subjective: what’s “crap” to one person might be sentimental or useful to another.

Why Are We More Forgiving of Our Own Crap?

• Wendy Wallison: People are quick to judge others’ purchases yet justify their own. As seen historically, this double standard has persisted since the 19th century. [05:12]

The Role of Humor and Novelty (06:10–07:00)

• Novelty and humor make it easy to buy cheap, odd items (“props for humor” like plastic vomit). Purchases feel risk-free due to low cost, and sometimes people buy things ironically. [06:10]
• Memorable Quote: "It's easy for me to take a chance on this thing that might revolutionize my life in some way, and it might not. But if I only pay a few bucks for it, that's no big deal." —Wendy Wallison [06:54]

Historical Roots: When Did Cheap Goods Appear? (07:03–08:18)

• First mass-produced “crap” in the U.S. appeared as costume jewelry in the late 18th century.
• After the War of 1812, British warehouses unloaded unwanted, inferior goods into the American market—America loved it.

Is This Mainly an American Phenomenon? (08:18–09:29)

• The U.S. is the most enthusiastic consumer and storer of cheap goods, exemplified by the rise of storage units.
• Wendy Wallison: "We rent little apartments for our stuff, the stuff that we can't accommodate in our own households." [08:51]
• Storage units as a uniquely American way to cope with excess.

Souvenirs and Sentimentality (09:29–10:47)

• Souvenirs are a classic example: low-quality, often manufactured abroad, but bought anyway as “memory objects.”
• "Most of the stuff is made in China, whether you buy it in Hawaii or at Niagara Falls." —Wendy Wallison [10:22]

The Disappointment Factor (10:47–12:58)

• Most “crap” is a letdown; gadgets fail to deliver utility, souvenirs don’t recapture experiences, and collectibles rarely appreciate in value.
• Case study: Beanie Baby bubble—mass-produced collectibles that promised increasing value but generally became worthless.

Subjectivity and Sentiment (12:58–14:01)

• Some items survive judgment by fulfilling their limited purpose or by holding sentimental value, defying the strict definition of “crap.”

Notable Quotes

• "What might be crappy to me might not be crappy to you." —Wendy Wallison [13:36]

Junk Drawers: The Purgatory of Possessions (17:48–19:37)

• Every home has a “junk drawer,” a microcosm of American attachment to broken or obsolete items.
• Wendy Wallison: "Objects in junk drawers live in a kind of purgatory." [18:25]

The Rise of Disposable Culture (19:37–20:46)

• Formerly, people cared for and repaired possessions; today, most things are disposable, and repair is impractical.
• Wendy Wallison: "We're no longer caretakers of the stuff that we have." [19:59]

The Addiction to Novelty (20:46–22:16)

• Advertising and novelty drive new forms of “crap.” Our short attention spans are well served by the churn of cheap goods.
• Wendy Wallison: "We have very short attention spans as consumers. [...] My loyalty really isn't to this object which I can easily cast off. My desire becomes aimed at something new." [21:12]

Greatest Hits of Uselessness (22:16–23:32)

• Examples: The hydraulic potato peeler (a messy disaster), copper-coated pans, “Garden Weasel,” and other infomercial stars.
• Wendy Wallison: “Even if ultimately they're useless, they're really kind of wonderful at the same time." [23:17]

Stores for Crap: From Five and Dimes to Dollar Stores (23:45–25:34)

• Dollar stores and Ikea are modern temples to cheap stuff.
• Historical parallel: Woolworth’s secret was mixing cheap and expensive goods, so the whole “treasure hunt” psychology took root.

Notable Quote

• "There's an interesting sort of consumer psychology there where you just sort of mix cheapness with variety and that sells." —Wendy Wallison [25:32]

Why Don’t We Learn? (26:38–27:04)

• Despite a lifetime of disappointment, we keep buying more cheap, disposable goods.
• The allure of “treasure hunting” and novelty persists across centuries.

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Part 2: Health, Movement & Everyday Fitness

Modern Exercise: The Paradox of the Fitness Boom (29:45–33:24)

• Despite billions spent and a massive fitness industry, population health stats (obesity, diabetes, sedentary rates) are worsening.
• Juliette Starrett: "People are getting the message that they should exercise in a formal way by, you know, putting on their shoes and driving to the gym. But somehow that's not moving the needle in terms of our overall health." [31:32]
• Misguided fitness messaging focuses on appearance ("ripped abs") rather than genuine well-being or pain reduction.

Lessons from Blue Zones and the Past (33:54–36:21)

• In long-lived global “blue zones,” movement is integrated into daily life, not chunked into isolated “gym time.”
• Small, frequent bouts of movement (walking, standing, daily tasks) matter far more than infrequent, formal workouts.
• Juliette Starrett: "What they've done is create what we call a movement-rich environment in their life..." [34:19]

The Power and Science of Small Movements (36:29–37:08)

• Moving throughout the day stimulates the lymphatic system, crucial for health.
• After surgery, movement is prescribed to clear the lymphatic system—proof of movement’s healing role.

Do Little Things Actually Add Up? (37:08–38:26)

• The “10,000 steps" rule was invented as marketing but is supported by research: 8,000+ daily steps correlates with longer, healthier life.

Movement Habits Over Willpower (38:45–41:33)

• Willpower alone is insufficient; environments must encourage healthy movement.
• Standing desks, sitting on the floor, and household design all support natural, regular activity.
• Juliette Starrett: "It's not because we think sitting is bad or standing is necessarily good, but what we do know is that movement is good." [39:47]
• Mention of the “Sit and Rise Test”: ability to get up from floor predicts longevity (try it: cross legs, sit down, stand up without hands/knees).

How Much Movement Is Enough? (41:33–43:35)

• 8,000–12,000 steps/day is a practical, research-backed goal for measurable health improvements.
• "Research shows that people can actually reasonably get 8,000 steps and they can do it by just adding small amounts of walking throughout their day." —Juliette Starrett [42:45]

Movement & Sleep (43:35–44:44)

• Movement improves sleep quality; even elite military units are prescribed 10,000+ steps to help with sleep difficulties.
• Juliette Starrett: “Additional movement adds up and actually triggers people to fall asleep faster and sleep more deeply.” [44:19]

Energy and Well-Being (44:44–45:59)

• Rather than depleting, regular movement increases overall energy, creating a positive feedback loop for health.

Encouragement: It Doesn’t Have to be Hard (45:39–46:59)

• Many meaningful movement habits can be built into everyday routines with minimal disruption.
• Juliette Starrett: "So many things that can really move the levers of health and of feeling good can be incorporated into things you're already doing in your day..." [46:05]

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Mini-Segments: Compliments & Doodling

The Power of Compliments (00:40–01:34)

• Specific, genuine compliments generate positive energy.
• For recipients: accept compliments graciously. “Smile and say thank you.” [01:32]

Doodling Boosts Focus (47:13–48:40)

• Doodling during meetings or lectures may help concentration and recall, as shown in research.
• Mental engagement through minor distraction (like doodling) keeps the mind from wandering too much.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• "We devote more of our domestic space to our crap and our clutter." —Wendy Wallison [08:42]
• "Objects in junk drawers live in a kind of purgatory." —Wendy Wallison [18:25]
• "We are huge fans of standing desks...not because we think sitting is bad or standing is necessarily good, but...movement is good." —Juliette Starrett [39:47]
• "Your ability to get up and down off the ground is a predictor of your longevity." —Juliette Starrett [40:45]

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Key Timestamps

• 00:40 – The Art of Complimenting
• 04:23 – Defining “Crap” with Wendy Wallison
• 08:18 – American Culture of Cheap Stuff
• 09:29 – Souvenir Culture
• 12:58 – Subjectivity of “Crap”
• 17:48 – The Ubiquitous Junk Drawer
• 19:37 – Our Disposable World
• 23:45 – Evolution of Cheap Goods Retail
• 29:45 – Health & Wellness Myths with Juliette Starrett
• 33:54 – Lessons from the Blue Zones
• 37:08 – Step Counts & Health
• 39:47 – Movement in Everyday Environments
• 41:33 – How Much Movement Actually Helps
• 43:35 – Movement’s Positive Effect on Sleep
• 47:13 – Doodling and Concentration

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Tone and Style

The episode is both humorous and insightful, blending academic rigor with relatable anecdotes and warm, encouraging advice. Wendy Wallison brings wit and historical perspective to the “crap” discussion, while Juliette Starrett delivers motivational, evidence-based health wisdom in a practical, approachable style.

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This summary captures all core ideas, pithy quotes, and practical messages, making it accessible for anyone who hasn’t heard the episode—and hopefully sparking new awareness about the things we buy and how we move!

Transcript

[Mike Carruthers]

Today on something you should know the art of giving and receiving a great compliment. Then why is it that Americans love knickknacks, gadgets, souvenirs and all kinds of cheap crap?

[Wendy Wallison]

Certainly the market in the United States has been the most enthusiastic our key purchasers of crap, and we have been since the 19th century. I would say that we do crap better than any other culture.

[Mike Carruthers]

Also, what doodling does does to your concentration and some very cool things about your health and fitness you may not know like the Sit and Rise test.

[Juliette Starrett]

And the Sit and Rise test is based on a great study that showed your ability to get up and down off the ground is a predictor of your longevity. The test basically involves crossing your legs and sitting down and then getting back up from that position without putting a knee or hand on the floor.

[Mike Carruthers]

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[Wendy Wallison]

Thanks for having me.

[Mike Carruthers]

So what makes crap crap? What's your definition of it?

[Wendy Wallison]

To me, crap consists of goods that are cheaply made, made not to last, made of inferior products, and are what I call cynically produced. They often promise more things than they actually deliver and end up disappointing people in the end. So what might be crappy to me isn't necessarily crappy to you?

[Mike Carruthers]

You know, my sense is that we're much more forgiving of ourselves and the crap that we buy compared to like, your neighbor buys something and you're like, oh my God, why would he ever buy that crap? But you've got crap that he's probably saying the same thing about.

[Wendy Wallison]

In my research, I came across people in the 19th century complaining about other people's consuming decisions and the fact that other people didn't know how to spend their money. But they themselves were very good judges of how to spend their money. And I think that's true today, too. We can justify our own frivolous purchases much more easily than, to use your word, than we can forgive other people's dubious purchases. And some things, a lot of crappy things, are kind of inexplicable. It's really hard to figure out why they were produced, what they're for, why they even need to exist. Beer koozies with boobs on them. Plastic vomit. Like, why do we need this stuff?

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, clearly we don't, but we have it anyway. But why do we have it? Why do we have plastic vomit and crass beer cozies? Why?

[Wendy Wallison]

I'M not sure if I have ever been able to answer the plastic vomit question, but those are like props for humor. And I think we feel sometimes like we need to have these humorous outlets. And things like those objects are kind of easy to purchase and they're easy to understand and they're easy to deploy. It's not only cheaply produced, but it's cheap to purchase. So there's very little risk in purchasing these things, even if we only think we're going to use them once. It's easy for me to take a chance on this thing that might revolutionize my life in some way, and it might not. But if I only pay a few bucks for it, that's no big deal.

[Mike Carruthers]

So when you look back, when did crap start? If there's a starting point in the.

[Wendy Wallison]

United States, I think the first crappy things that I've seen would include costume jewelry, which starts to be produced in the late 18th century, really.

[Mike Carruthers]

So costume jewelry is the beginning of crap. And then what happens?

[Wendy Wallison]

Very quickly the cheap goods market expands. And a lot of that is because with the lifting of the embargo after the War of 1812, we were importing a lot of goods from Great Britain and those goods were shut up in British warehouses. And then there was this like pent up surplus. And so British goods were dumped onto American markets in the late 18 teens, 18 twenties. And a lot of these things were manufactured as cheap goods, sort of shoddily made produced goods. And others were things like textiles that had sort of faded over time, books whose pages had gotten brittle, things that couldn't be sold in the British marketplace. So they brought them over here. And Americans loved this stuff.

[Mike Carruthers]

So stuff nobody wanted in Britain fed the desire in America for crap. Which makes me wonder, is crap? Is the collection, the purchase and collection and storage of crap an American thing primarily?

[Wendy Wallison]

You know, that's a really good question, and I get that a lot. And it's a question I can't really answer fully. What I can say is that certainly the market in the United States has been the most enthusiastic are key purchasers of crap. And we have been over time since the 19th century. And we devote more of our domestic space to our crap and our clutter. Even just if we think about in today's terms, we are the largest consumers of storage units. So I see it as we rent little apartments for our stuff, the stuff that we can't accommodate in our own households. I would say that we do crap better than any other culture.

[Mike Carruthers]

We win the award. There is something about Buying crap, particularly like when you go on a trip, like if you go to Hawaii, you want a souvenir of your trip. And one way to get a souvenir of your trip is to buy the keychain or the little hula dancer to hang on your mirror or the coasters that say Waikiki on them. And they're really kind of lousy souvenirs and you're probably gonna end up throwing them out, but you feel compelled to buy it.

[Wendy Wallison]

Oh, for sure. I mean, that's really kind of the basis of souvenir culture, isn't it? For the most part, we do buy these crappy little mementos of our trip, of this extraordinary time that we've had to bring back to our kind of normal everyday lives to remind us. Yeah, magnets, keychains, funky hats, of course, ironically, usually not made in the place where you buy them. Most of the stuff is made in China, whether you buy it in Hawaii or at Niagara Falls. But that doesn't seem to matter so much as this token kind of being a memory object of our experience.

[Mike Carruthers]

One of the characteristics, it seems to me of crap is it's always disappointing, like it never lives up to what you think it's gonna be. The souvenir you bring back from your trip never really reminds you of your trip that much. And it's just so many of these things don't live up to the hope or the promise. Right? I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of examples.

[Wendy Wallison]

A gadget, you know, we'll promise to make some task quicker, easier, more enjoyable. Or a lot of gadgets promise to do like eight things in one. But the reality is that the eighth thing in one gadget might do one thing okay, but probably doesn't do any of those things very well. And the gadget that promises to make our work more enjoyable and easier will often create more work. You know, if it's a kitchen gadget, it might require like all this cleaning, or it just might not work very well, or it just takes more time in some other way. So the promise, the gadget falls far short of what it promises. In the case of collectible objects, those are kind of crappy in a different way because they promise to be investment objects often. But the kinds of mass produced collectibles that people like to purchase, collectible coins, figurines, you know, Beanie babies in my book, I talk about the Beanie Baby bubble. People had had a promise that these things were going to appreciate in value. And some people even invested their retirement money in these collectibles. And in the end, there was no resale value for a lot of these things. So those things were crappy in a different kind of way.

[Mike Carruthers]

There are some things that I think you would categorize as crap. There's a picture of them in your book, like the little porcelain dolls that you think of grandma has on her piano, kind of. But they're not cheaply made, or many of them are not cheaply made. They last forever. They don't fit the real description of your description of crap. And they do exactly what they're supposed to do. They sit on the piano. That's it. So, you know, promise delivered, right.

[Wendy Wallison]

It probably sounds like I'm being really judgy. And by calling these things crap, of course there is a judgment in that word. But I'm really trying to understand these objects rather than being so judgmental about them. And as I said before, like, what might be crappy to me might not be crappy to you. So something that to me is just kind of a worthless knickknack that I have to dust might be this really sentimental figurine to you.

[Mike Carruthers]

We're talking about crap today. The crap in your house and why it's still there. And I'm speaking with Wendy Wallison. She's author of the book A History of Cheap Stuff in America. I don't really like buying clothes online just because the odds are so bad. I've sent back more things than I've kept, so I didn't expect much from Quince. And yet I was wrong. Dead wrong. I love Quince. Everything fits. I don't think we've sent anything back. I mean, they're cashmere sweaters. I've got two of them. They are ridiculously soft. They hold up. And they didn't cost a fortune. I mean, we've bought so much from Quints. Jeans, shoes, shirts, belts. The prices are amazing. And that's because Quince works directly with top factories and cuts out the middlemen. So you're not paying for brand markup. You're paying for quality clothes that actually last. So at this point, before I buy anything new, I check Quint's first. Not out of loyalty. Well, maybe a little out of loyalty, but mostly just experience. Quince delivers. So refresh your wardrobe with quince. Go to quince.comsysk for free shipping and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.comSYSK you know what's weird? About hair loss. It doesn't happen all at once. You just sort of notice it one day.

[Juliette Starrett]

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[Mike Carruthers]

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[Wendy Wallison]

That's a great question. What I find is that people are often really bemused by their stuff. Like, they'll just admit, like, yeah, this thing is crappy. Yeah, I shouldn't have spent money on it. Or can you believe that I bought this thing? And you know, sometimes people will make ironic purchases. They'll buy things specifically because they know they're crappy. I think because a lot of the things I'm talking about are so inexpensive, they become this very kind of throwaway thing. And so there's a frivolity to them that I think people are comfortable laughing about. So I don't, I don't encounter a lot of. Of shame with people with crap. They mostly just laugh and admit that, yeah, they've got crappy stuff.

[Mike Carruthers]

I don't know if this is human nature or what, but every home, I think, in the United States has something like a junk drawer where we keep this stuff. It's like a tribute to your topic of crap. We keep broken things. We keep broken pens and pencils. We keep watches that don't work anymore. We keep them in our junk drawer. And there's this resistance to getting rid of them that. And by putting them in the junk Drawer, kind of. That's where they belong, but they still don't work. They don't do anything. But we can't let them go.

[Wendy Wallison]

You know, it's funny you mentioned that. For some reason, I've been thinking a lot about junk drawers lately, and you're absolutely right. Like, the objects in junk drawers live in a kind of purgatory because we put them in this thing that we call the junk drawer, and they're just miscellaneous, right? Rubber bands and thumbtacks and toothpicks and twist ties and pens that don't work to your point. And yet we just can't throw them away. There's something about our needing to hold onto them. I don't know if it's because we think that maybe they'll have some use value at some point. You know, like, oh, as soon as I throw that twist tie away, I'm gonna need it, and then I'm gonna regret it. But we often consign these things to a specific drawer, and it's kind of a smaller version, I think, of how we think about storage units. We can't get rid of that stuff either, but yet we don't want to live with it. We don't want it in our houses so we can sign it to a big junk drawer, a storage unit instead.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, it does seem, and I don't have any evidence to prove this, but it does seem that today, more than yesterday, we have a lot more disposable junk. We live in a more of a disposable society. Whereas in earlier days, people had, like, quality stuff. They had really good stuff that they held onto.

[Wendy Wallison]

We're no longer caretakers of the stuff that we have. And I think that that's a real. That marks a real difference in how we used to live. In the past, things were handed down. People had fewer objects and they took better care of them. Clothes were refashioned, recut, restyled, sized down. Handed down, things could be repaired. Now everything is made of plastic or pressed wood, so you can't. Like, an IKEA cabinet can't even be repaired. So our relationship to our material world is much different, and it's a much more disposable world now that we're living in.

[Mike Carruthers]

It seems to me that one of the big drivers for all of this crap that we buy is that, is the novelty of it. We see some new gadget that does things we've never seen before. Ooh, I've got to have that. I've never seen that before. And that's what Drives the purchase of a lot of this, along with the advertising that puts it in front of our faces. Because if we didn't know it existed, we wouldn't need it.

[Juliette Starrett]

Right?

[Wendy Wallison]

Novelty. Novelty plays a big role in this, and it has over time as well. We like new things and we are. We have very short attention spans as consumers. So as I mentioned before, like a lot of our attraction to cheap goods, I think is because it allows us to just constantly have this churn of the new. We have a desire, we can satisfy it, and then we can move on to a new desire which is then easily satisfied as well. And even if. Even if goods disappoint us, especially crappy goods which are going to disappoint us, that's okay, because my loyalty really isn't to this object which I can easily cast off. My desire becomes aimed at something new. And so I can always sort of look for something different, novel, and always be changing up kind of the objects around me.

[Mike Carruthers]

Talk about some of the most unusual, just subjectively, that you discovered, some of the fun things that you found that people actually buy or have bought.

[Wendy Wallison]

You know, there are things like the hydraulic potato peeler, which, which had a moment in the 1950s where it. It promised to peel potatoes instantly. And all you had to do was hook up this device to your. Your faucet and turn on the water. And what it really did was it just sprayed this sort of macerated starch all over the kitchen and created a mess. I'm actually really kind of interested in the infomercials that are on today. You know, extra laminated copper nonstick pans or the brownie pans in the shape that gives you, like, crust all around the garden Weasel, the lawnmower that, like mows the lawn and collects the leaves and mulches and does all these things. I just think. I think even if ultimately they're useless, they're really kind of wonderful at the same time.

[Mike Carruthers]

Was there a golden age of crap? Or what is the trend of crap, if there is such a thing? Or crap is just crap and it comes and it goes.

[Wendy Wallison]

Since the 19th century, we've always had a lot of crappy stuff, and we still have a lot of crappy stuff. And we have stores dedicated to selling it, like dollar stores, which are not new. They emerged in the 19th century as well. So I suppose you could say that crap now has become even bigger business with chains dedicated to selling cheap stuff. We have places like dollar stores, and five below we have Ikea that sure sells cheap furniture that Allows people to furnish their apartments if they can't afford to buy higher quality furniture.

[Mike Carruthers]

But people who are old enough to remember can remember stores like Woolworths, you know, the five and dime, and these were stores on Main street usa. These were not dollar stores that were kind of like on the outskirts of town. These were Main street stores that did very well, but clearly they sold a lot of crap.

[Wendy Wallison]

Yeah. So Woolworth had this sort of brilliant insight, which is that if you put a lot of low priced goods together and seed what he called seeded the lot with a few nicer objects, people are going to want to buy everything. The cheap goods become as desirable as the more expensive goods because people kind of feel like they can find a treasure in there. And he had this really, really brilliant insight and created entire stores that were filled with low priced goods and a variety of goods. So you mix the variety, this sort of idea of miscellaneous infinite novelty with low price. And it creates this thing in people's minds that they think they can find the secret treasure, the one like hidden thing of value in the store. And so that continues today in dollar stores. There's an interesting sort of consumer psychology there where you just sort of mix cheapness with variety and that sells. It sold in the 19th century and it still sells today. One of the things that's interesting to me is that the way consumer psychology worked 100, 200 years ago is not that much different than how it still works today.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, it's quite a story and I just find it so strange that we're so attracted to crap and even after a lifetime of crap, we still buy more crap. I've been speaking with Wendy Wallison. She's an associate professor of history at Rutgers University Camden and author of the book A History of Cheap Stuff in America. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, Wendy. Thanks for being here.

[Wendy Wallison]

Thank you.

[Mike Carruthers]

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[Wendy Wallison]

Ah, the Regency era. You might know it as the time when Bridgerton takes place. Whereas the time when Jane Austen wrote her books, the Regency era was also an explosive time of social change, sex scandals and maybe the worst king in British history. Vulgar History's new season is all about the Regency era, the balls, the gowns and all the scandal. Listen to Vulgar History, Regency Era. Wherever you get podcasts.

[Mike Carruthers]

It would be difficult to find someone, anyone who didn't know that exercise and movement are good for the human body. Fitness is by all indications a very worthy goal because it has been linked to better health and longer life. But what does it mean to exercise? Is any exercise good? Is hard, strenuous exercise better? Do you really need an hour a day at the gym to do any good? Or does a walk around the block after dinner, do something? Well, let's take a look at this because I think the answers may surprise you. Here to talk about this with me is Juliette Starrett. She is an attorney, professional athlete and podcaster and co author of the book Built to Move. Hi Juliet. Welcome.

[Juliette Starrett]

Hey Mike. Thanks for having me.

[Mike Carruthers]

Sure. So people are certainly exposed to a lot of messages promoting health and wellness and exercise. So do you think, since you're in the middle of all this, do you think people are getting the message and taking this to heart, unfortunately, it does.

[Juliette Starrett]

Not seem like we are getting the message. You know, over the last 30 years, when the fitness, health, the health, fitness and wellness industry has really taken off, it's become a trillion dollar industry. And yet simultaneously, if you look at literally any measure of health that you might care about, whether that's obesity, diabetes, sedentaryism, depression, ACL rates in acl, tear rates in children, low back pain, we are not doing well. Most of those statistics are trending downwards in that we are, we seem to be getting more and more unhealthy and we are spending more time sitting and less time moving. And so it's not a pretty picture right now. And it seems like in the health and fitness and wellness industry of which we, we live and breathe and have been working for the last 25 years, I would say I would give us maybe A C grade in terms of how we're doing. I think we're trying to get the message out there that people should move more and take care of their health, but it somehow isn't resonating and it's not working in people's time crunch lives. People are going to the gym, but they aren't moving enough throughout their day.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, they're joining the gym, which is more proof that people get the message. They hear the message. But I'm told from people that work in that business that a lot of their profit comes from people who join gyms but never go or seldom go because. Because they don't.

[Juliette Starrett]

You know, people really didn't start joining gyms en masse until the early 90s. You know, there was some aerobics and YMCAs in the 80s, but it wasn't until the 90s that people really started joining gyms. And simultaneously our obesity rates have continued to climb. So that really got us thinking, what's the message here? What's going on here? People are getting the message that they should exercise in a formal way by, you know, putting on their shoes and driving to the gym. But somehow that's not moving the needle in terms of our overall health.

[Mike Carruthers]

Isn't it interesting that there is so much money spent promoting health and fitness on television and just when you see all these fitness models in magazines and promoting let's all get healthy and some people buy into it, and yet overall we hear that we're heavier and less healthy than we used to to be.

[Juliette Starrett]

I think that this is yet another messaging problem we've had in the health and fitness business. If you look at most health and fitness accounts on the Internet, you know, what people are touting is, you know, how strong your abs are, how ripped you look, or, you know, what kind of diet is working for, you know, working to calorie, restrict and make people the most jacked and tan looking. Right. But what most people actually care about is feeling good in their body. And that's very different for different people. And secondarily, most people don't want to be in pain. And that's a very common thing we see. And I think we've really missed the mark in our business by suggesting that people should care about being extremely lean, having ripped abs, strong butts, and that that's the way to feeling good and feeling healthy when it turns out it's not. And, and most people don't care about that.

[Mike Carruthers]

So here's a question I'd like you to tackle because it's one I've wondered about, if you look back at pictures, images, movies from earlier times, you know, 50 years ago and earlier, you don't see a lot of heavy people. And yet in those times, people were not joining gyms. There wasn't a fitness craze. It's more just the way people were and they seem fitter and leaner. So what do you make of that?

[Juliette Starrett]

I would make two points here, Mike. The first is that we spend a lot of time reading about and researching the blue zones. And blue zones are those five or six areas around the world where people live the longest with the fewest chronic illnesses. And they've gotten a lot of attention in recent years. And there are some very common things that are common things among each one of the blue zones. And one of those things is that physical activity is built into their daily life. And if you contrast that here in this country or in, you know, in Europe and the uk, exercise has become a formal thing that we think we have to do in these one hour blocks, right? We have to strap on our gym shoes and get in our car and drive to the gym and do our orange theory class or lift weights. But what you see in these areas where people are living long without chronic illnesses, what they've done is create what we call a movement rich environment in their life. So they're often not doing any kind of formal exercise, but instead they're continuing to move throughout their days and movement is built into their daily lives. You know, they're walking to the grocery store, they're getting outside, they're, you know, they're moving throughout their day in various ways. They're definitely not sitting all day long. And so this general movement is really common amongst cultures and people who live long and live without chronic illness. And this was really influential for us because I do think we've sent people the message that, hey, look, if you go to the gym for an hour, you've checked the box and you're healthy. But what's really missing is this movement rich environment and creating opportunities for ourselves to continue moving throughout the day, shifting our mindset from thinking that if we don't have a full hour to exercise, we may as well do nothing. Instead that these little five ten minute movement breaks, we take little walks after we eat, can really add up and they can be compounding. And so we, for example, are huge fans of taking three 10 minute walks after you eat dinner. And that's additional 30 minutes a day. And if you compound that day after day, month after month, year after year, that's so much additional movement, and there's so many reasons why walking and additional movement are good for us above and beyond exercise.

[Mike Carruthers]

And what would those be? I mean, what would be the benefits of exercise beyond the benefits of exercise?

[Juliette Starrett]

Well, I'll start with something that may be a little obscure, but the lymphatic system is a little understood but extremely important part of our body. And the simplest way to explain it is it's, you know, we have groceries in and garbage out, and our lymphatic system is how we get the garbage out of our body. And as one example, anyone who's had surgery knows that one of the first things that you do in the hospital after you have surgery is they get you up and move you around. And the reason for that is that's gonna help clear your lymphatic system. The only thing that effectively clears your lymphatic system is movement.

[Mike Carruthers]

Address this idea. Cause I think people have a sense that. That all these little things don't really add up. But you had said that there is a cumulative effect, that doing all these little movements adds up. So explain. What does it add up to? What is the cumulative effect?

[Juliette Starrett]

So in the 1960s, there was a Japanese pedometer company that actually popularized the idea of the 10,000 steps. And they actually did that as a marketing ploy to get people to buy their pedometer. But since that time, a massive amount of research has filled that in to show that the more you move, the longer you're going to live and the fewer chronic illnesses you're going to have. Now, what we know is the average American gets about 3,000 steps a day. And what we also know is that you can get most of the benefits of moving more at anything over 8,000 steps a day. We recommend that people move between 8 and 12,000 steps a day. But honestly, more is better. And that Even though the 10,000 steps rule started off as a marketing employee, there has been a ton of research to show that the more you move, the longer you're going to live and the less chronic disease you're going to suffer.

[Mike Carruthers]

And yet, despite those rather impressive benefits, exercise and movement is still at the bottom of the list on people's priority or not even on the list of people. People's priority. They would just rather do something else, maybe anything else other than exercise.

[Juliette Starrett]

One thing we know is that people cannot rely on willpower or motivation. That's been tried and tested in our environment, and we've learned that people don't. They only have so much willpower. And motivation. And instead, they need to be able to rely on habits and creating environments where it's easier, easy to make the right choice, and it's hard to make a bad choice. The simplest example of that is that my husband Kelly, loves cookies. And if we have cookies in the house, he's going to eat cookies. And so we do our best to make sure we have as few cookies around the house as possible, because if we have them, he's going to eat them. But we've tried to take that same principle and apply it to movement in our own lives and try to help people figure out how they can apply it to movement in their own lives. And I'll give you a few examples. So we are huge fans of standing desks, but I think standing desks have been very misunderstood. And a lot of people went out and bought standing desks. They stood up for eight hours, they felt terrible, and they, you know, they lowered their desk and they sat down again. And the reason that we like standing desks is not because we think sitting is bad or standing is necessarily good, but what we do know is that movement is good and that if we set up our environment so we're given more opportunity to move, we are more likely to do it. And so in our office, for example, every single desk is set at standing height. Now, we also have stools here available where people can sit and perch, but the default is to have your desk in a standing position, which makes it easier to make choices about how we move throughout the day. So if there was a hidden camera following me all day long, you would see that I stand for part of the day. I'm actually standing during this podcast right now. I sit, I perch. But the key thing is that I'm moving in small ways throughout my day and I'm changing my position. Similarly, if you look at our house, we've set up our house and our living room to give ourselves as much movement opportunity as possible. So in our book, our first chapter starts with what we call the sit and rise test. And the sit and rise test is based on a great study that showed that your ability to get up and down off the ground is a predictor of your longevity. And the test basically involves crossing your legs and sitting down and then getting back up from that position without putting a knee or a hand on the floor. Because we value this position and think it's a predictor of our long term health, we've set up our house so that it's easy for us to choose to sit on the floor. And spend some time working on our mobility.

[Mike Carruthers]

I know you said that the more movement the better. But I think people like to have a sense of like. Yeah, but how much like what's the minimum amount of. What's the minimum that actually does something?

[Juliette Starrett]

Well, you know, I go back to the walking piece because to me that is the place where we can best measure movement and the easiest way we can measure movement. Most people these days have a smartphone and, or they're wearing some kind of smartwatch or some kind of technological tool where they can measure their movement. And the best way to measure that is in walking. And so we are fans of the 8 to 10,000 or 8 to 12,000 step rule and that's the way that people can really test whether they're getting enough movement. And it's quantifiable. Now we also of course are fans about, fans of continuing to move throughout our day in the form of standing and you know, getting up and down off the ground and practicing our balance. But I think the easiest way for people to measure their overall movement is in their step count. And everybody has a tool these days that can tell them where they are. And it's the best benchmark of what, whether or not we're getting enough movement. So I think sometimes the 10,000 step rule has, has created an environment where people think, well, I'm not going to make that so I'm not even going to try. But research shows that people can actually reasonably get 8,000 steps and they can do it by just adding small amounts of walking throughout their day, like the 10 minute post meal walk I talked about, or my husband and I take a 20 minute post dinner walk every day. That those small, small walks added to any day can add up to 8,000 steps without actually having to schedule a one hour formal walk into the day. That it can be added in as it can be, it can add up to 8,000 steps and you can get all the benefit of that movement at that level. So that's why we put that as the benchmark.

[Mike Carruthers]

I know you talk about the connection between exercise and sleep and since both are so important to health and they're so related to each other, explain how that all works.

[Juliette Starrett]

One of the downstream positive effects of getting more movement is you actually can fall asleep well and have a deeper and more high quality sleep. Right. So moving throughout your day is good for your overall health and longevity, but it also may help with your sleep. For example, we worked with the Delta Force, an elite military unit, and when their unit is struggling to sleep when anyone in the unit is struggling to sleep, the first order prescription they're given is to walk 10 to 15,000 steps a day. Because what they've learned is that additional movement adds up and actually triggers people to fall asleep faster and sleep more deeply. And so while of course all this movement throughout our day is good for our body, it's clears our lymphatic system, it's good for our overall health and longevity. It also is good for your sleep.

[Mike Carruthers]

Which is good for your health.

[Juliette Starrett]

Yes, it's all connected.

[Mike Carruthers]

And interestingly, that feeling tired, lack of sleep is one of the excuses people use to not exercise. And at least my experience is that exercise rejuvenates you. It gives you energy. Even if you don't feel like you're up to it, it'll make you feel better.

[Juliette Starrett]

The more people are able to actually incorporate these practices into their lives, the more energy overall they will feel. Because again, we're a connected system. We believe that if you get seven to eight hours of sleep, if you actually eat some fruits and vegetables and enough protein, if you spend a little time working on your mobility, if you walk enough, all these systems are connected and in fact, you're going to actually have more energy.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, I think there's a real positive message here that it isn't all about strenuous weightlifting at the gym kind of exercise. If you want to be healthy and fit, there's just so many more options that people don't, don't think about, or they just don't think they'll do anything.

[Juliette Starrett]

There is so much that people can be doing to improve their health and importantly feel better and be able to do the things they want to do physically that don't involve formal exercise, going to the gym, you know, following a really strict diet, that so many things that can really move the levers of health and of feeling good can be incorporated into things you're already doing in your day, including during your workday. And I, I hope that that helps motivate people to realize that again they there you don't have to add a 20 item to do list to feel good in your body, that there are so many little things that have compounding value that you can do to feel better in your body now and in five, in 20 and 25 years.

[Mike Carruthers]

Great. Well, it's a really good message. I've been talking with Juliet Starrett, who is an attorney, a professional athlete, a podcaster, and co author of the book Built to Move, and there's a link to her book and to her podcast in the show notes. Thanks, Juliet.

[Juliette Starrett]

Thanks so much, Mike. Thanks for having us.

[Mike Carruthers]

Sometimes when I'm sitting here interviewing people for this podcast, I doodle. And I used to feel guilty about it, I guess because I've been told all my life that if you doodle well, you must not be paying attention. But I actually think it helps me pay attention. And as it turns out, if you're in a meeting or listening to a presentation or in the classroom and you doodle, it may in fact help your concentration. When researchers observe people who were asked to listen to boring phone messages, the people who doodled had better recall than the people who didn't. Well, the researchers speculated that doodling took just enough attention to keep the listener's mind from wandering, but not so much attention as to be distracting. The doodling gave kind of a mental break from the task of listening, and in this way, doodling might improve your working memory. More recent studies have found that college and junior high school students who doodle recall more information than non doodlers when listening to school lectures. So feel free to doodle. And that is something you should know if you enjoyed this episode and it gave you something to think about. The best compliment you can give and the thing we appreciate the most is if you share it with just one person. One person that you care about. That's how this show grows, and I'm really grateful when you do. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know.

[Wendy Wallison]

My dad taught me a lot, including.

[Juliette Starrett]

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[Wendy Wallison]

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[Juliette Starrett]

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