When science contradicts marketing. It is time to rethink the goal of 10,000 daily steps (a concept promoted in the 1960s by a pedometer brand) and aim more modestly for 7,000 steps, or about an hour of walking. This is not yet an official recommendation but a realistic and completely pragmatic conclusion from an Australian study recently published in the journal The Lancet Public Health.
The team from the University of Sydney (Australia), led by Professor Melody Ding, selected 57 prospective studies conducted between 2014 and 2025 in more than ten countries, including Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan.
The benefits known from the practice of 10,000 were in fact achieved from that of 7,000
In all these studies, the number of daily steps was very precisely measured (pedometers, accelerometers, connected bracelets) but also associated with at least one health parameter (mortality rate, incidence of diabetes, dementia, etc.). For the record, and depending on each person's height, a step is 50 to 80 centimeters, which translates to a distance of between 3.5 km and 5.6 km for 7,000 steps.
By analyzing these associations based on the daily practice of 2,000 steps, Australian scientists calculated the benefits conferred by adding each 1,000 steps. additional steps and demonstrated that the benefits known from the practice of 10,000 were in fact achieved from that of 7,000. Concretely a reduction in the overall risk of death of 47 %.
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“ For people who are already active, 10,000 steps a day is still excellent.
Furthermore, according to comparisons made between people walking 2,000 or 7,000 steps per day, it is in the 7,000 group that the risk of other pathologies is also reduced. That is -38 % for dementia, -25 % for cardiovascular diseases, -22 % for depression, -14 % for diabetes and -28 % for falls.
“ For people who are already active, 10,000 steps a day is still excellent., says Dr. Katherine Owen, co-author of this work, in theUniversity press release. But beyond 7,000 steps, the additional benefits for most of the health parameters we examined were modest.".
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In conclusion, let's not exhaust ourselves, but let's move and walk. According to the World Health Organization and a recent study, Nearly a third of the world's adult population, or 1.8 billion adults, are still inactive.
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