What does 10,000 steps a day really do? Here’s why your daily step count is not everything

It is one of those health messages that has become lodged into our public health consciousness. Add these new findings to another study that came out just last week, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine that showed that taking 4,000 daily steps reduced the risk of an early death by 20 per cent and that any steps over 2,200 steps a day improved health and mortality – does it mean that “10,000 steps a day” has been a myth all along? “As people get older, it’s likely they won’t need 10,000 steps and that less is likely to suffice.” Intensity matters If you’re walking faster, fewer steps may be needed. While 10,000 steps can incentivise people and stimulate them to do more towards a target, when it comes to step count and any activity, it’s like a medicine; there’s a dose-response Professor Stephen Harridge “Our bodies are designed to be metabolically functioning and you can only get that by moving around,” says Berger. open image in gallery Harridge: ‘If you can’t get the distance in, increase the intensity’ But for goals like weight loss, it’s more like that famed number, according to research which found that people who lost more than 10 per cent of their body weight over 18 months did indeed do 10,000 steps a day, If heart health is your aim though, one study found that anything really is better than nothing.