Do you Really Need 10,000 Steps a Day?

Your fitness tracker encourages you to take 10,000 steps a day for better health. Science doesn't exactly support that. Today we're talking about the research around step counts and all-cause mortality.

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Credits:
Aaron Carroll -- Writer
Meredith Danko – Social Media
Tiffany Doherty -- Writer and Script Editor
John Green -- Executive Producer
Stan Muller -- Director, Producer
Mark Olsen – Art Director, Producer

[janmelantu]

Okay but have you considered the immense amount of Dopamine and Serotonin I get when I hit 10k steps?

[slundgr]

My doctor said that any device that measures our activity is helpful because it keeps us from cheating or lying to ourselves. He also said if his patients exercised as much as they say they do and ate and drank as little as they say they do, his practice would drop by 50%.

[Crazycooco]

10, 000 steps is 5 miles, which on average 5 miles burns 400-500 calories. It’s worth it

[young]

I went from 40k steps a week to 80k steps a week. I noticed my cravings for junk food went down significantly after doing that

[human_brian]

It is so weird how some marketing company in Japan set this "standard" and no one questioned it for nearly 60 years. Glad some intrepid researcher finally decided to take this one on.

[CptPatch]

Noteworthy that orders of ten-thousands (万) are the main way that large numbers are grouped in Japanese and also that the same character is used in places with strong connotations, like 万能 (all-purpose), 万全 (perfection), 万事 (all things), or even 万歳 (Banzai). So you can definitely see why a marketing team would pick that number.

[axMfqTI]

I never thought that 10.000 was a magic number but getting that 10.000 celebration thing on your phone is kinda a reward which makes you walk more, it's just health gamification. For example instead of taking the bicycle to the supermarket I often walk now. I'm not walking circles around my block to get to 10000 but having a counter makes you more mindful that walking is an option.

[jessicasnow]

I think of 10, 000 steps as a very good day, activity wise. It’s not realistic every day for me right now, but I do also think about a “minimum” goal of 7-8 thousand steps a day. People are imperfect, especially when it comes to exercise habits. Aiming for 10k makes me more likely to be consistently reaching 7k daily.

[adamm]

So 4400-7000 steps per day ideally. Got it, thank you!

[bibliofowl]

I feel like most people are just using it as it was originally intended: A way to get moving more. I very rarely if ever hear people say that it's THE number and you will get healthier if and only if you hit 10k.

[OutlawsBebop]

This looks like it also only considers mortality. 10-12k steps is roughly 5 miles. If you walk that every day, it's a good general fitness routine. It will help you stay at a healthy weight. If you lift weights and do cardio, factoring your cardio into your steps is enough to be lean. It's still good for you. Also, as with any fitness regimen, the numbers are almost always arbitrary and built around "feel good" numbers. There's more than one way to meet your fitness goals, and 10k steps just happens to be one of those ways.

[beoz]

The fit bit motivates me so I do the 10, 000 a day, plus slow jog and weight lifting, swimming. Keep moving people!

[DoggyHateFire]

They combine something that is completely true (physical activity is good) with marketing by adding a nice round psychologically satisfying number like 10k. It feels like the eight glasses of water a day rule. There's no magical number because there's multiple variables involved but people need a number so they can reach it and feel like they accomplished something. It's not necessarily dumb, people just don't like ambiguity.

[cjwhitmore]

This video came on my feed while I was at the gym, and I hit 11k today. Good to know I'm likely not falling short when I hit my normal 6k to 8k steps.

[d_dave]

I found 10, 000 just a little too difficult to do every single day without fail, so I've been targeting 8000 in recent years. These studies couldn't have better results as far as I'm concerned :p

[eliot]

What an interesting episode! The history is definitely not what I was expecting

[irinaphoenix]

So what you need to address is how having that goal of 10, 000 affects people's motivation to be more active, vs having a lower and more achievable goal that possibly has the same benefit. Does the goal of 10, 000 make people more likely to hit 7, 000? Or does it make people less motivated over time bc it's harder to achieve?

[ee]

Looking at someone’s activity for a week and drawing a conclusion 4 years later based on that data sounds absolutely insane. As to how you could conclude anything meaningful here baffles me.

[SterbsMcGurbs]

I used to do 13000 steps per day at my last job. I'm not a doctor but I can tell you walking that much on concrete is heck for your knees.

[KennedyGangFood]

I will continue to do my 10, 000 steps a day