For the longest time, we’ve been told to walk 10,000 steps per day.
Well, apparently that was based on a marketing campaign for a Japanese pedometer with no real science to back that up.
Who knew
The fun part is that now we actually do have data to answer this question—from 50,000 people spanning 4 continents and published in The Lancet Public Health journal. They found:
More steps per day reduced the risk of premature death.
For adults over age 60, the benefit leveled off at 6000-8000 steps per day.
For adults younger than 60, the benefit leveled off at 8000-10,000 steps per day.
Sounds like the 10,000-step goal was a pretty good guess for those Japanese marketers! But we can still get the same benefit for a little bit less than that.
Do you track your steps? What’s your goal?
