If you can’t take the fateful 10,000 steps a day and you’re giving in to frustration, console yourself: there are 8,000 steps to take in a day, i.e. about 5 and a half km. And if even these seem too many to you, know that there is at least two good news: the first is that they are actually easier to do than you think; the second is that even a little less could be enough. But let’s go in order.
The 10,000 steps a day have no scientific basis
The famous 10,000 steps a day has no scientific basis. All this despite the fact that our sportswatches, smartwatches and smartphone apps are set to that target by default. Which is a marketing goal rather than real evidence related to health. There history dates back to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics when a doctor, Iwao Ohya, and a watchmaker technician, Juri Kato of Yamasa Tokei Keiki, brought the first modern pedometer to market. Already in the mid-1960s Japan was suffering the first consequences of an increasingly sedentary population, and so it was that Dr. Ohya and Mr. Kato fixed a nice round number capable of striking people’s attention and imagination: 10,000 steps per day.
The success was such that more no one asked whether there really were 10,000 steps to take in one day, or more, or less. And that number then entered by default in all the technological evolution of pedometers, from the first bracelets with accelerometers to modern sports watches with triple satellite system. In fact, we too had already wondered if we really need 10,000 steps a day.
There are 8,000 steps to take in one day
Only in recent years have doctors, scientists and researchers dealing with health and aging tried to scientifically calculate what is the threshold of steps that can really bring benefits to healthwhat is the minimum threshold below which we can speak of a sedentary lifestyle and what is the level of activity beyond which the growth curve of benefits stabilizes.
And the result is that there are 8,000 steps to take in one day.
A study much cited today is the one published in 2019 by theAmerican Medical Association (Association of Step Volume and Intensity With All-Cause Mortality in Older Women) in which a group of doctors from Harvard Medical School took into consideration the movement habits of a group of over 16,000 elderly women (between 62 and 101 years old) who had used a pedometer for 4 years between 2011 and 2015. With 4,400 steps per day there was a 41% reduction in mortality, which decreased slightly until it stabilized at 7,500 steps per day. But this cohort study only looked at mortality, and only in a population of older women.
In 2020, another research appeared then, conducted by the National Cancer Institute – Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (Association of Daily Step Count and Step Intensity With Mortality Among US Adults) in which the population considered was 5,000 American adults. Also in this case no scientific findings have emerged regarding the famous 10,000 steps, while the plateau of benefits would be 8,000 steps a day, an amount at which the risk of premature death is halved compared to life expectancy.
Another study from 2021 came to the same results (Steps per Day and All-Cause Mortality in Middle-aged Adults in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study) led byInstitute for Applied Life Sciences, Department of Kinesiology, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
What distance is 8,000 steps a day
But what exactly does it mean to take 8,000 steps a day? How far are they in terms of km? We need to do the average, but considering a person – man or woman – of about 170 cm, it can be estimated that walking for his normal daily activities, he takes about 70 cm long steps. Taking this average for good, 1,000 steps would be 700 meters, and 8,000 steps would be 5,600 meters more or less. That is 5 and a half km. That sayings like this may seem like a huge distance, but actually putting together a few daily activities – from shopping to taking public transport, from taking the dog out to moving around the office during 8 hours of work – are easily reachable. Just try changing the settings of your sportwatch (and eventually start worrying and change something in your lifestyle if you don’t even reach 8,000 steps a day).
READ ALSO: Is it enough to walk 11 minutes a day to live well?
Photo by Volkan Olmez / tourist stand
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