Posted on 07/24/2025 7:13:30 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Ten thousand steps works out at roughly five miles or eight kilometers. The precise distance will be different for everyone, varying according to stride length which depends on height, gender and walking speed, with faster walkers tending to take longer strides.
The figure of 10,000 steps can be traced back to a 1960s marketing campaign in Japan. In the run-up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, a brand of pedometer was launched called the manpo-kei, which translates as "10,000-step meter".
Dr Ding says this figure was "taken out of context" and became an unofficial guideline, which many fitness trackers and apps continue to recommend.
The Lancet study analysed previous research and data on the health and activity of more than 160,000 adults around the world.
Compared with those who walked 2,000 steps a day, it found that 7,000 steps was linked to reduced risk of:
cardiovascular disease - down 25%
cancer - down 6%
dementia - down 38%
and depression - down 22%
However, the researchers say some figures could be less accurate than others as they are drawn from only a small number of studies.
Overall, their review suggests even modest step counts of around 4,000 steps a day are linked to better health compared to very low activity of just 2,000 steps a day.
For most health conditions, the benefits tended to level off beyond 7,000 steps although there were additional advantages to walking further for the heart.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
My uncle has a dog named “Five Miles” - he walks Five Miles in the morning and Five Miles in the evening.
I used to do 5 miles a day. It was not really improving stuff that much. 3 miles seems to be the “right” amount for me. I keep the weight off, my blood work is great, and I save about 30 minutes.
Everyone should do SOMETHING to keep themselves in original, showroom condition.
7,000 steps a day?? Must be a typo. Surely they meant year.
That showroom condition gets hard to maintain when you have used your body like a souped up demolition derby model.
You get 6-7000 steps a day just being an office worker.
An office worker at a desk and a computer all day?
We had a family group - all on the FitBit - our goal was five miles a day - I was the only one that could get it b/c I worked at a school, ran around all day, then had two large dogs at home that needed long walks.
After retirement, and as the dogs got older, that switched to around three miles/day. I really don’t see any difference.
Five miles/day is also time consuming and not realistic for most people.
I always lose count within the first thousand or so.
One of my dogs, when he got older, was apparently calibrated with a “half-tank” alarm. We’d go for miles, and he’d suddenly stop. Not one more step away from the house...this would be a couple of miles out, on old logging roads. Turn around, and walk toward the house, and he still had plenty of bounce in his step when we walked home. Then, sofa-time.
Nowadays, office workers sit on their rear ends all day exercising their fingers on the keyboard.
I always ran after work, about 21 miles a week.
Now, with bad knees, I either bike ride, swim or walk, for an hour, six days a week.
I gave my FitBit to my husband one day - school administrator, large school, had supervision at different gates during the day + running all over putting out “fires.”
He figured he covered five miles/day and it turns out he did. As a school teacher, my mileage was about 3.5 each day.
Of course all that changed after retirement - but having dogs helps, they get me out walking morning and evening.
Good advice. Longer isn’t always better (That’s not what she said).
I’m sure there are lots of occupations where people are on their feet all day walking. Nurses come to mind quickly.
We no longer have a dog, but we talk a 40-45 minute walk every day. Before we started walking every day, I only averaged a mile walking daily. Now I’ve averaged over 3.7 miles a day for 4 years. Our health numbers have improved, so until we can’t, I think we’re hooked on taking a nice walk every day, in addition to whatever exercise we get otherwise.
“An office worker at a desk and a computer all day?”
Yes, just walking from the car, walking a bit about the office, going to lunch, and going to the bathroom adds up to around 6-7,000 steps for a modern office worker.
Ha! That would require undoing a lot of things.
Must have to park quite a bit away from the office.
My daughter in law has a standing desk at work, and a walking treadmill under it. It’s worked well for her and has not affected her work (she’s a marketing assistant).
On a different note, my son got me a pedometer because he didn’t think I was walking enough. I wore it a few weeks and logged 8-10,000 steps per day, lol. Between housework, farm work and gardening, I keep pretty busy!
I have thousands of steps of yard work on the agenda today, but I think the heat and humidity would kill me and thus undo the bennies. It is like walking underwater...
Let's see: very little hair, feeble, incontinent, can't walk, cry a lot, can't eat solid food, sleep a lot but irregularly... I'm not back to original condition yet, but I'm getting there.
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