Do you really need to walk 10,000 steps a day to stay healthy?

You might be surprised by the findings of a recent Stanford Study.

Several years ago, I was walking in a senior apartment community, took the elevator up and greeted a sweet 80-year-old lady. I asked her if we could work on her walking in her home and down the hallway with her walker. She replied “of course, I need to get to my 10,000 steps!” pointing to her Fitbit like device. “I asked what are you talking about?“ She replied, “I use this device on my wrist to count how many steps that I take each day and my goal is to reach 10,000 steps. My doctor told me it was a good idea to keep track of my activity.”
“Well that is a great idea,” I replied completely ignorant about the technology she was referring to on her wrist. That began my inquiry into using and understanding steps as a reference to physical activity.

One of the things we have learned in our physical therapy profession and personal training careers is that we need to stay active for cardiovascular health as well as resistive strength training to keep our bones and muscles strong. Inactivity at any age is like a disease of the musculoskeletal system. As humans, we can choose to move our bodies each day or decide to remain on the sofa or the bed clicking our remote control catching our favorite TV programs.

Many of us have heard the old saying “if you don’t use it, you lose it”. But what does this mean in terms of our health? We all know that we need to move our muscles to get stronger or to keep some level of fitness even if it’s Maintenance Fitness versus athletic fitness. Have you ever tried to pick up a 20 pound of bag of mulch or a gallon of milk at the store and realize “wow this is heavier than I thought?” Well, the weight of those items did not change but if you don’t regularly pick up 20 pounds or a gallon of milk which tends to be approximately 8 pounds, you will realize that your muscles have lost some strength to perform that very same activity that you have done in the past. I am sure some of us can relate. Equally important is weight-bearing activity which includes walking, running, jumping, or otherwise doing activity that is on our feet versus elevating our feet on a La-Z-Boy. (No offense La-Z-Boy, I personally own 2 of your sofas).

Why…Do you ask? Our bones will not maintain their strength, nor will they get stronger without weight-bearing activities. In fact, we will lose bone density in approximately 2 to 3 weeks after being laid up in bed. Inside our bones is located the bone marrow. And within that space, red blood cells are produced and distributed throughout our bloodstream. Without weight-bearing activity, the bones do not get stimulated to continue their job. And if we don’t get up on our feet and move, we start to lose bone density including bone loss. This will eventually lead to weakness in our bones and put us at risk for fracturing our bones.

So where did the 10,000-step number come from?

Well to be honest, the origin is unclear. Some scientists have delved back in history to discover a possible link to the trade name of a pedometer that was sold in 1965 by Yamasa Clock, in Japan, called Manpo-kei, which translates roughly to “10,000 steps meter” in Japanese. In more recent times, it was a marketing campaign to get people walking and buying step tracking devices. It’s not a bad idea because we already know that the body needs to move each day for optimal health. But is there any scientific evidence to back up this claim. Yes! Let’s dive into this a little deeper.

A recent Stanford study published in 2019 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (jamanetwork.com) did try to determine how many steps we really need to take each day to achieve a health benefit.  The results were very interesting. The study determined that older women (mean age 72 years) that were able to step 4400 steps a day had significantly lower mortality rates than women who walked 2700 steps a day. An increase in the number of steps per day did lower mortality rates further however that benefit seemed to level off at 7500 steps.  The study did not consider culture, diverse populations, or diet and it was limited to women who were able to walk unaided (without a walker or cane). For instance, Australians and Swiss citizens tend to walk 9-10,000 steps a day and the Amish are estimated to walk 14,000-18,000 steps a day.

Regardless of age or where you live, we know that walking is good for our health. If you don’t do 10,000 steps a day. No worries. From a public health perspective, the use of walking steps is a great guide for the public to understand and work toward the goal of increased physical activity that is easily measured by smart phones and wrist tracking devices. So, like my lovely 80-year-old client said above “I need to get to my 10,000 steps!”.  Go grab your sneakers and let’s try to walk every day. If you are not sure where to start, check out this article 7 Tips before you start Exercising.