{"id":635125,"date":"2026-10-19T09:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T09:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/635125\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T09:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T09:14:08","slug":"is-it-true-that-you-need-to-take-10000-steps-a-day-to-be-healthy-walking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/635125\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it true that \u2026 you need to take 10,000 steps a day to be healthy? | Walking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The idea that we need to walk 10,000 steps a day originated not in medical research but in a 1960s marketing campaign for a pedometer, says Jack McNamara, senior lecturer in clinical exercise physiology at the University of East London. The round number was easy to remember and the idea caught on, despite there being no scientific evidence for 10,000 steps as\u00a0a specific threshold for health.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cWhen the research community looked into it, they found that there were health benefits, so it didn\u2019t necessarily get thrown out as pseudoscience,\u201d says McNamara.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Walking has been shown to benefit cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory health, as well as reducing the likelihood of some cancers. It also breaks up sedentary time, which is hugely harmful to health. \u201cBut when we look into it with systematic reviews\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lanpub\/article\/PIIS2468-2667%2825%2900164-1\/fulltext\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">large-scale studies<\/a>, there start to be diminishing returns the more steps you do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>double quotation markThe problem comes when you start chasing step counts for their own sake, then punish yourself for missing them<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">McNamara says the health improvement is huge when someone goes from a sedentary lifestyle, or 2,000 steps a day to 4,000. But going from 8,000 to 10,000 or 10,000 to 12,000 brings a much smaller benefit. \u201cIt still has some benefits, just not as many as people might expect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">That\u2019s not to say we should spend more time sitting down. If you enjoy walking, McNamara says, walk for as long as you like. The problem comes when you start chasing step counts for their own sake, particularly if you punish yourself for missing them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">If you\u2019re already clocking up plenty of daily steps, he suggests switching some walking for higher-intensity exercise, if you can, to get greater health benefits. \u201cGoing for a run, or swimming at pace, or walking uphill, or power walking \u2013 something that gets your breathing up. You\u2019d be so much better doing something that\u2019s a\u00a0little bit more vigorous.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The idea that we need to walk 10,000 steps a day originated not in medical research but in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[565,134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-635125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}