A Research Study Gives New Insight Into the 10,000 Steps Per Day Rule

StudyPages

May 31, 2022 • 3 min read

What is a good daily step goal?

People have been striving to take 10,000 steps a day for decades, based on the belief that this is the magic number to reach to maintain good health. Recent research shows that this number is likely an overestimate, making daily step goals more attainable.

The Origins of the 10,000 Steps Rule

The popular belief that people should strive to take 10,000 steps a day likely came from a marketing campaign rather than from the results of a vigorous research study. A Japanese clock company developed a pedometer in the 1960s to take advantage of an increased interest in fitness that came with the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

The Japanese name of the device was translated into English as the "10,000-steps meter" and a legend was born.

That goal became so entrenched into popular thought that app makers and fitness companies built and still build 10,000-step goals into their programs and wearable devices. But what does science tell us about this goal?

Recent Research Into Steps and Health

To answer the question of how many steps per day people need to stay healthy, researcher Amanda Paluch of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an international team of scientists reviewed the results of 15 studies that included a total of close to 50,000 participants across four continents.

The findings they released in early 2022 revealed that taking more steps a day did improve health, but that many people maximized the benefit without reaching 10,000 steps.

Age and Steps

One of the major findings of the research review was that the benefits of walking are incremental and that once people reach a certain level the positive effect on their life expectancy plateaus.

People under the age of 60 needed between 8,000 and 10,000 steps per day to reach the maximum benefit of a lower risk of premature death.

For people ages 60 and over, the plateau was accomplished at between 6,000 and 8,000 steps per day.

Walking Speed

The researchers also looked into whether the results of the studies showed that increased walking speed provided an additional benefit. They found good news for people who were told that their strolls weren't helping keep them healthy.

The studies showed that intensity provided no additional benefit above the steps themselves when looking specifically at life expectancy. This indicates that the link between walking and a lower risk of premature death is there whether people power walk or enjoy a slower pace.

Other Research Into the 10,000 Steps Rule

The international collaboration wasn't the first time Paluch was involved in research into whether people need to aim for 10,000 steps a day. In September 2021, she and her team at Amherst released the findings of their study of 2,110 middle-aged adults who wore fitness trackers for 11 years.

They also found incremental benefits tied to the number of steps taken in this study.

People who walked 6,000 steps had better health outcomes than people who walked 5,000 steps and 5,000 steps were better than 4,000 steps. But there was a plateau at 7,000 steps, at which people reduced their risks of premature death by between 50 and 70 percent.

These same incremental gains were found by other researchers in a 2019 study of more than 15,000 women who wore step-counting devices between the years 2011 and 2015. This study found that for older women, 4,400 steps produced a significantly lower mortality rate compared to 2,700 steps. These benefits increased with more steps but plateaued at approximately 7,500 steps.

This 2019 study also found that the intensity of the steps didn't provide any additional benefit in terms of improving life expectancy.

How Many Steps Do People Need?

Decreasing the risk of premature death isn't the only reason people try to increase the number of steps they take each day or the speed at which they take them. There can be increased benefits in calories burned or increased muscle mass in taking more steps or walking up steep hills.

However, if people are walking with the main goal of staying healthy and increasing their life expectancy, recent research shows that they do not need to force in that extra 2,000 steps at the end of the day to reach 10,000.

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