The Myth of 10,000 Steps
Chances are you're heard of the idea of walking 10,000 steps a day. This idea was first popularised in Japan back in the 1964 as a promotion for the Tokyo olympics that Japan was then hosting. Pedometers were sold with the explicitly stated goal of aiming for 10,000 steps each day. And I can understand why they chose it, it's a nice round number after all. Perhaps that it is why this goal of 10,000 steps has persisted into modern day. Even now if you buy any kind of fitness tracker or use any kind of health tracking app the daily step goal will nearly always be set to 10,000 steps a day as the default. I love tracking data about myself and have used a Fitbit for many years now which led me to develop a certain curiosity about this so often perpetuated 10,000 steps a day goal and whether it has any actual backing in science.
I never particularly enjoyed trying to reach the 10,000 steps a day goal, I'm already busy enough without trying to add a lot of extra walking into my day. Having a work from home desk job means that I don't naturally get a lot of steps in my day. My health is still very important to me, I want to ensure that I stay healthy for as many years as possible and exercise is unfortunately often a key part of that equation. This results in an attitude where I am willing to put effort into exercise but I want to get the most value possible with as little time spent on it as I can. Walking 10,000 steps a day is not a low time investment if you don't already naturally walk a lot throughout your day. I've experimented with timing how long it takes me to walk that much and for me it came out to about 2 and a half hours of nonstop walking. That's an unsustainable amount of effort for me to put in each day.
So what does the science say? Well studies are mixed as they often are when it comes to research. But it is generally agreed that walking less than 4000 steps is bad. The biggest benefits to health were often found once reaching 4000 steps a day and continued benefits after that but with diminishing returns. After around 7500 - 8000 steps a day are reached further benefits beyond these numbers are harder to identify (if they exist at all). After I first read these studies a few years ago I adjusted my fitbit's daily step goal to 7500 and thought that was that. I was still working a standing job at the time and unfortunately as I've shifted into office work and working from home (along with some chronic fatigue issues I may get into another time) I usually only reach around 3800 steps a day. So is my health doomed if I can't find a way to increase how much I walk each day?
Well perhaps not, because there's another dimension to the daily walking equation that I haven't talked about yet. That is how long you walk for at a time. Studies have found that how long you walk for at a time may have larger impacts on health than how many steps you walk a day total. In particular the largest benefits were found at walking continuously for a minimum of 15 minutes a day. Multiple shorter walks were not as beneficial as one longer walk. And 15 minutes really isn't that much. It's certainly a far easier time investment than 2 and a half hours every day for 10,000 steps. Moving forwards I'd personally like to aim for around a 20 - 30 minute walk each day (in addition to my regular weightlifting which is a similarly optimised routine and I may expand on that in another post in the future).
So in conclusion don't feel bad if you don't reach 10,000 steps a day. There are easier ways to take care of your health whether you aim for 7500 steps a day, 4000 steps a day, or just a 15 minute walk each day. And if you do reach 10,000 steps a day then don't let me discourage you from stopping! None of this research would advocate that you walk less if you're exceeding the baselines. In the end the 10,000 number is appealing for a reason and that's why its persisted through several decades of marketing since its conception back in 1964.
Further Reading (For anyone interested) Aguiar, E. J., Ducharme, S. W., & Thomas, D. M. (2019). Is 4400 steps per day the new 10 000 steps per day?. JAMA Internal Medicine, 179(11), 1601-1601.
Banach, M., Lewek, J., Surma, S., Penson, P. E., Sahebkar, A., Martin, S. S., ... & Bytyçi, I. (2023). The association between daily step count and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality: a meta-analysis. European journal of preventive cardiology, 30(18), 1975-1985.
Hajna, S., Ross, N. A., & Dasgupta, K. (2018). Steps, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, and cardiometabolic profiles. Preventive medicine, 107, 69-74.
del Pozo Cruz, B., Ahmadi, M., Sabag, A., Saint Maurice, P. F., Lee, I. M., & Stamatakis, E. (2025). Step accumulation patterns and risk for cardiovascular events and mortality among suboptimally active adults. Annals of Internal Medicine.