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Do you really need 10,000 steps a day? What the research says

Updated Six Habits Editorial Team
An older man and his adult daughter walking briskly through an autumn park, smiling
The short answerThe 10,000-step figure is not a scientific standard. A meta-analysis of 15 cohorts found that the risk of death drops as steps increase and levels off at about 6,000 to 8,000 steps for people 60 and older and 8,000 to 10,000 for younger adults. Benefits appear from a few thousand steps, and every extra thousand counts.

Key points

Myth: health starts at 10,000 steps

The 10,000-step goal is built into many fitness trackers, but it is usually traced to marketing for a Japanese pedometer in the 1960s rather than research.

Fact: benefits start earlier and level off

Meta-analysis of 15 cohorts. Among almost 50,000 adults, more steps were linked to progressively lower risk of death. For adults 60 and older, the benefit leveled off at about 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day; for younger adults, at about 8,000 to 10,000 (Paluch et al., 2022).

U.S. adults. In a nationally representative sample of about 4,800 adults who wore accelerometers, 8,000 steps a day was linked to a 51% lower risk of death than 4,000, and 12,000 steps to 65% lower (Saint-Maurice et al., 2020).

Every thousand counts. Another meta-analysis of about 227,000 people found that each additional 1,000 steps was linked to a 15% lower risk of death from any cause, with benefits starting at around 4,000 steps a day (Banach et al., 2023).

What it means in practice

A caveat

These are observational studies: healthier people may walk more. Still, the results are consistent across many cohorts.

How to add 2,000 steps to your day

Frequently asked questions

Does walking speed matter?

Faster walking has been linked to additional benefits in some studies, but total steps were the stronger predictor.

Where did 10,000 steps come from?

It is usually traced to a 1960s Japanese pedometer marketed as "manpo-kei", which means "10,000-step meter".

Sources

  1. Paluch et al. (2022). Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts. The Lancet Public Health 7(3):e219-e228. doi:10.1016/S2468-2667(21)00302-9
  2. Saint-Maurice et al. (2020). Association of Daily Step Count and Step Intensity With Mortality Among US Adults. JAMA 323(12):1151. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.1382
  3. Banach et al. (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. doi:10.1093/eurjpc/zwad229

Prepared according to our evidence methodology and the principles of lifestyle medicine. For education only; it does not replace advice from your doctor.

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