Scientists Finally Did a Study to See If Taking 10,000 Steps a Day Actually Matters. Here’s What They Found
Whether it was from a blog post or the instruction manual of your new wearable health device, you’ve probably heard along the way that taking 10,000 steps a day is good for you. If you’re keen to maximize your health, energy, and productivity, you probably took that advice.
It makes sense, after all. Exercise is clearly good for your physical and mental health. And 10,000 has a nice, scientific ring to it. But what that pamphlet or article touting 10,000 steps didn’t tell you is that, up to now at least, that number had absolutely no research behind it. It was actually dreamed up for a Japanese marketing campaign.
Getting up and moving more is a good idea. But science had no idea if there was a magic number of steps for health or what it might be. So a team out of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst set out to fix that, finally conducting a study to determine how many steps you should really aim for.
10,000 isn’t a magic number.
The research, which was recently published in JAMA Network Open, followed 2,110 middle-aged adults who had worn a step-counting fitness device beginning in 2005 or 2006 for 11 years. Were those who managed 10,000 steps a day less likely to…
