Good Question: How Many Steps Should We Be Taking Daily?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- As more and more of us are wearing our health technology on our arms, it is becoming easier to figure just how much we are exercising.
You have likely heard the new magic number of how many daily steps we should be taking is 10,000, but it turns out that number is not new -- and it is also somewhat arbitrary.
So, how many steps should we take a day? Stephanie Helgeson is an exercise physiologist with Allina Health's Milton M. Hurwitz ExerCare Fitness Center.
"There's not really an answer for how many steps we should take each day," Helgeson said. "The 10,000 was created for the simple factor and that was to sit less and exercise more. It's really a guideline of just getting people to move and have a goal to shoot for."
According to Catrine Tudor-Locke, a professor who studies walking behavior at LSU's Pennington Biomedical Center, the 10,000 steps can be traced back the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
It was originally considered a marketing campaign for a Japanese company that had made a pedometer called "manpo-kei" -- "man" stands for 10,000, "po" for step and "kei" for gauge.
"It was a nice, round number that rolls off the tongue easily," Tudor-Locke said.
She likens "manpo-kei" to Nike's slogan "Just Do It."
"Before you knew, people were 'manpo-keing' all over the place," Tudor-Locke said.
The average American takes 5,000 steps a day. Compare that to the Japanese at 7,168 per day and the Swiss at 9,650 per day.
A 2004 study also found Amish men walked an average of 18,425 steps a day.
"It gives you an idea of what life might have been like at some point," Tudor-Locke said.
Helgeson says most people starting out on an exercise program want to start with a smaller goal than 10,000 steps a day. She recommends counting your steps for a day and then adding 1,000 steps -- or two to five minutes of exercise -- daily each week.
She often finds how surprised people are at how few steps they take each day.
"Ten-thousand steps is a wonderful goal for most people and that's why this 10,000 steps seems to be the norm," Helgeson said. "That's a great goal because it's equivalent to five miles and that's a lot of exercise."
She says very few people can reach 10,000 steps without some "extra" exercise, like walking the dog or walking around at lunch.
The 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend 150 minutes of exercise a week. Tudor-Locke says that translates into 7,500 steps a day. She considers 5,000 steps a day a minimum.
"If you're averaging under 5,000 steps, that's not a good state of affairs," Tudor-Locke said. "Just get off the couch and start moving."
An average person with a sedentary job and lifestyle might average 1,500 to 2,000 steps a day. Helgeson says people should be moving more than that.
And depending on age, physical limitations and weight-loss goals, sometimes 10,000 might not be enough.