Physical activity and exercise.
Both strategies help us think about our own health and long term goals. Physical activity (PA) includes all general movement throughout any 24-hour day – gardening, walking, dishes, laundry. Exercises differs such that you exercise with a specific purpose – training for a 5K, lifting weights, learning new boxing moves. Researchers use the former (PA) when developing public health guidelines.
This post follows up to an early BehaviorFit blog – Do You Need 10,000 Steps Every Day?. In that article, I reviewed the history and application of the 10,000 step count rule.
In general, if you hit 10,000 steps per day on average, your health outcomes are better off.
But, the problem with this ever-so-popular number is that 10,000 steps per day was never based on objective research!
What research exists today about 10,000 steps?
Physical activity and public health researchers are now publishing literature concerning a dose/response relationship for steps counts. That is, what is the best “dosage” of steps that yields that best “response” or health outcomes?
Is 10,000 steps per day the best? Can I get by with only 5,000 per day?
To do this, researchers create graphs with best fit lines indicating that the number of steps that reduce risk related to preventable disease (e.g., cardiovascular disease) and mortality. When curves “flatten” out, you can look at the number of steps on the graph to determine the quantity of step that are most beneficial.
How many steps per day I need?
It depends on your age.
Paluch et al (2022) found that step counts around approximately 8,000 steps per day for individuals >60 years old and 6,500 steps per day for individuals <60 years old produced the best dose response relationship.
Again, following the orange and blue lines you oversee the benefits shrinking past those two thresholds. We obtain most of the benefit from additional steps from 5,000 to 8,000 steps per day for the younger crowd and 3,000 to 6,500 steps per day for the older crowd.
Final steps…
Similar studies describe objective benefits sliced differently across health outcomes and demographics. While 10,000 steps per day is an easy recommendation to follow, we are only recently learning that we actually reap the most benefit – as measured by this study – lower steps counts per day.
Of course, other benefits accompany regular movement throughout the day (reducing sitting is beneficial, exercise is important).
Keep moving.
Reference
Paluch, A. E., Bajpai, S., Bassett, D. R., Carnethon, M. R., Ekelund, U., Evenson, K. R., … & Fulton, J. E. (2022). Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts. The Lancet Public Health, 7(3), e219-e228.
