Do you think you should take 10,000 steps a day? This myth is falling apart.
Don’t have time to exercise every day because your job takes up too much of your time or because you have to go home early to take care of your family? No time on weekends because you have to do shopping or housework? Your daily steps can be the solution to exercise.
But for many people, there is a rule: take 10,000 steps a day. Except this is not true and has been proven according to various experts. So where does this myth come from? In 1965, a Japanese company released a pedometer called Manpo-kei. The name translates to “meter of 10,000 steps”. So you see, everyone assumed that 10,000 steps was the ideal daily amount to maintain good physical activity.
An urban legend? Most devices that monitor our physical activity, such as smart watches or fitness trackers, only take Manpo-Kei’s 10,000 steps as a reference. Wrongly according to most scientists and various studies on the subject.
A study published in JAMA notably found that the optimal number of daily steps was about 8,000. Doing more gives only marginal benefits. According to a meta study published in The Lancet, 7,000 steps are also needed for people over the age of 60. From the analysis of various data, it was concluded that the risk of mortality was reduced by 50% in elderly people who increased the number of daily steps from 3000 to 7000.
Very surprisingly, if you are under 60 years of age, even walking more than 8000 steps can be harmful because according to the same study, we should not even consider this possibility because it slightly increases rather than reduces the risk of death. WHO does not specifically focus on the number of steps to be achieved, but more on the intensity of the activity and its duration. It therefore recommends practicing “during the week, at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity endurance activity or at least 75 minutes of sustained-intensity endurance activity or an equivalent combination of moderate and sustained-intensity activities.
In eastern France, Martin Duclos, head of the sports medicine department at Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital, who also directs the National Observatory of Physical Activity and Sedentary Life, explains that 10,000 steps a day would correspond to “a good hour and a half. Walking every day, which today Not possible for many people.” So she recommends “walking 6,000 steps a day, or at least 30 minutes of brisk walking every day, and this, at least five times a week. That’s enough, and it’s achievable.”
