Posted on 06/17/2026 6:41:06 PM PDT by Red Badger
You've probably heard that adults should aim for 10,000 daily steps.
This one-size-fits-all approach provides a clear message, though it doesn't consider how varied human lifestyles and bodies are.
In 2024, an international team of researchers found that even the most sedentary among us could ward off the harmful effects of sitting by incorporating more steps into our day.
Sedentary lifestyles are increasingly common, and we know they're linked to higher odds of dying from cardiovascular disease (CVD), greater risk of cancer and diabetes, and a shorter lifespan.
Those risks are lower for people with higher step counts and faster-paced walkers.
But it hasn't been clear whether highly sedentary people might be able to offset those alarming health risks with daily steps.
Watch the video below for a summary of the findings:
VIDEO AT LINK..........
The more steps that people in the study took, no matter how sedentary they were otherwise, the less risk they had of CVD and even early death.
So those of us with desk jobs are not totally doomed, though the researchers emphasize that it's still important to try to reduce sedentary time overall.
"This is by no means a get out of jail card for people who are sedentary for excessive periods of time," population health scientist Matthew Ahmadi from the University of Sydney explained when the research was published.
"However, it does hold an important public health message that all movement matters and that people can and should try to offset the health consequences of unavoidable sedentary time by upping their daily step count."
Ahmadi and colleagues analyzed data from 72,174 volunteers contributing to the UK Biobank, a large long-term dataset established in 2006 that will continue to track participants' health measures over at least 30 years.
There was an average of 6.9 years' worth of general health data for each participant included in the study. Participants had worn wrist accelerometers for seven days to estimate their physical activity levels, such as the number of steps they usually took and the time they usually spent sitting.
The median time spent sedentary was 10.6 hours each day, so those who spent more time than that were deemed to have 'high sedentary time', while those with fewer hours were deemed to have 'low sedentary time'.
Participants whose stats in the first two years might have been affected by poor health weren't included in the study, so the findings apply only to people who, for at least the first two years' worth of data, were generally healthy. It's unclear whether the data included participants with disabilities affecting step count.
The team found between 9,000 and 10,000 daily steps were optimal to counteract a highly sedentary lifestyle, lowering incident CVD risk by 21 percent and mortality risk by 39 percent.
Regardless of a participant's sedentary time, the researchers discovered that 50 percent of the benefits kicked in at around 4,000 to 4,500 daily steps.
Related: New Daily Steps Goal Shows You Don't Need 10,000 to Keep The Weight Off
"Any amount of daily steps above the referent 2,200 steps per day was associated with lower mortality and incident CVD risk, for low and high sedentary time," Ahmadi and colleagues wrote.
"Accruing between 9,000 and 10,000 steps a day optimally lowered the risk of mortality and incident CVD among highly sedentary participants."
This research was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
An earlier version of this article was published in March 2024.
Excellent!!!
I’m just plain tired.
For ALL-—Never get tired of donating to this site.
I walk around my apartment and now I’ve started tai chi for old farts.
I can go farther than that on my 4 wheeler. I feel better after a ride. Getting fresh air and no sweating.
As with many things it is very simple. Eat Less. You know what it means, you know what you have to do. Eat Less.
I do 3-4 walks a day spread out, about 30 minutes each.
Summary:
Replace the "10,000 steps a day" goal (which is mostly light-to-moderate activity) with a goal of 10 minutes a day of vigorous activity.
What counts as vigorous? In this study, it meant moving fast — like jogging, running, cycling, swimming, or even doing bodyweight squats. Heart rate wasn't specifically tracked, but vigorous exercise generally equates to 70% or more of your max heart rate.
Do "exercise snacks": short, 1-to-3-minute bursts of vigorous physical activity scattered throughout your day, rather than done all at once in a dedicated gym session. Instead of blocking out time for a full workout, an exercise snack is a spontaneous moment of high-effort movement that gets your heart rate up. She has a good discussion on reductions of risk of dying of cancer, getting diabetes, getting CVD (i.e., "all-cause mortality") at the 4:00 minute mark.
Last year I walked an average of 1,743 steps a day.
This year so far it’s 1,347 a day.
And it’s a coincidence that the numbers are the same, just switched….
I have some catching up to do.
If you are getting 10,000 steps a day…you are not sitting down. You are walking steadily for more than an hour. So, I would think that is NOT sedentary.
I usually do 7000 -10000..............
9573 steps today...according to my Garmin....and I’m kinda old. Included time on the Elliptical.
This is a stupid experiment egged on by click bait purveyors and orthopedic surgeons. All this mobility is great for a human living 300,000 years ago. But humans have evolved and returning to the daily habits of wandering tribal people without a few hundred thousand years of body and metabolism adjustment is fun to watch but no help to quality of life. This experiment results in some great heart ejection fractions and heart rates and fall injuries, complications and knee and hip replacements to prove it.
You can buy a smartwatch at Walmart that does all that stuff for under a hundred bucks...........
You can buy one on Amazon for under 20
My doctor annually asks what kind of exercise I get. Since at 87 I don’t go out all that much, most of my exercise is going up and down stairs in a 4 story row house with 9 and 10 foot ceilings. Kitchen and laundry are in the basement, entrance is first floor, my personal room and bathroom are second floor, and my partner’s personal room, and the desk top computer and printer are on the third floor. I make a number of trips a day from one or more floors up or down. Sometimes I bring food or laundry up to the third floor. I walk steadily upward, often without stopping, and arrive on the third floor without breathing hard, but sometimes my legs burn. So how many trips a day do I need to get adequately exercise? Recently I walked 7 city blocks to vote, walked back 3 blocks to buy food, then 3 more blocks to pick something up, then finally 4 blocks back home. I was pushing a small grocery cart the whole way. Filled with food the last 7 blocks. I was tired when I got home. My only medication is Levothyroxin, and I take a number of supplements. Am I getting enough exercise for my age?
I always lose count.
I’m 79 went carnivore in 2018, was very strict for three years, got really healthy. I was walking on city streets an hour a day, about three miles.
But I got cocky. One night I played pool til 2, when they closed, so I went to the gym for half an hour, didn’t do much, then home, to my condo. In the parking lot, I thought, it’s 3AM, I’m not ready for bed yet, I’m going on my walk. No need to change into a white T shirt, no one is out.
Well, I got hit by a car in the crosswalk of the freeway onramp, guy left me for dead with two broken legs. Lucky I had my phone and remained conscious and called 911.
I was in a nursing home for three months, then home, took almost three years before I can walk pretty well now without pain.
But I stopped walking. Many in the condos here walk in the evening inside the complex. I should start doing that. I bought a treadmill but you know how that goes...
“If I hear one more “I gotta get my steps in” I’m gonna scream.”
What’s your daily scream goal?
Take a hike.
This turns out to be 2044 31 inch steps per mile; so let' say abot 2,000 steps, for which 10.000 steps would be about 5 miles.
In comparison with my youth, for my four years in high school, I walked for the four miles around my paper route before school, six days a week. then I walked around ny high school, afterward playing soccer or baseball practice. In athletics the coaches usually required a couple of laps around the field, or a number of laps around the gym for basketball. AndI walked a quarter mile each way to scholl and back home.
I believe that made me strong, tp last through my life. It is no wonder that the continual use of autos to go anywhere has made adults gradually lose life-pro;onging strenth through abandoning walking as the way to live just for every day tasks.
In my 80th year, no longer driving myself, I still find myself able to walk to and from the nearest bus stos (half- to 3/4 mile) and then anpyher three or four miles between the stops at various stores and restaurants while shopping, then getting home not yet being tired of it.
Go to it, my friends. Put away the car keys whenever you can find the time to do it.
Go wa;k.
Americans are the only people on Earth that drive 5 miles in an SUV to go to a gym to walk on a treadmill.........
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