BALTIMORE—In a report many experts have described as deeply discouraging, researchers at Johns Hopkins University published data Thursday that suggest the average American adult walks no more than a mile each year with their pants down around their ankles. “Though a small handful of Americans clumsily waddle up to five miles annually with their pants bunched up at their feet and their belts jangling on the ground, the unfortunate truth is that most of us never walk more than a few feet in this condition,” said the report’s visibly concerned co-author Ryan Groth, explaining that apart from occasional scrambles out of the bathroom to get more toilet paper or to answer the front door while getting dressed, U.S. residents are barely shuffling around in the awkward position at all. “We had expected to find a few instances in which people charged out of their homes to catch a bus, only to discover later that they had failed to properly zip up and button their pants beforehand. Or maybe a case or two in which a man in a fancy suit walked several blocks before he finally looked down at his feet, realized his pants had fallen down, and exclaimed, ‘Oh no, not again!’ But regrettably, this just wasn’t the case.” Groth added that Americans were far more likely to spend time with their pants wrapped around their heels in a sedentary position after coming home from work and being too lazy to take them off completely.

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