Most of our fitness trackers are set to a daily target of 10,000 steps. But is 10,000 steps really the magic number? Well, a recent study suggests that we might have pushed our daily step count a bit too much.A major study led by the University of Sydney suggests that walking 10,000 steps a day may not be the gold standard of health as we believed. The findings are published in The Lancet Public Health. Do you really need to walk 10,000 steps a day for optimal health?
10,000 steps a day has become the new norm for a healthy life, however, recent research has found that walking 7000 steps may be enough to achieve most of the benefits. According to the study, walking 7000 steps a day can lower the risk of an early death by up to 47%. Walking 7,000 steps a day offers similar health benefits across several outcomes as walking 10,000. Well, those additional 3000 steps could be doing nothing more than leaving you drained. The new study has found that health benefits increased with every 1000-step increment up until 7000 steps, at which point the benefits began to taper off!
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10,0000 steps vs 7,000 steps
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The new study, led by Professor Melody Ding from the School of Public Health, looked at the impact that different daily step counts have on the chance of dying from cardiovascular disease and cancer, and developing diseases such as cancer, type 2 diabetes, dementia, and depression. This study is the largest and most comprehensive review to date. To understand the impact of different daily steps target, the researchers analysed data from 57 studies from 2014 to 2025 that were conducted in more than ten countries, including Australia, the USA, the UK, and Japan.According to Professor Melody Ding, the findings offer a more achievable benchmark for people who struggle to meet traditional exercise guidelines. “Aiming for 7000 steps is a realistic goal based on our findings, which assessed health outcomes in a range of areas that hadn’t been looked at before. However, for those who cannot yet achieve 7000 steps a day, even small increases in step counts, such as increasing from 2000 to 4000 steps a day, are associated with significant health gains. We know daily step count is linked to living longer, but we now also have evidence that walking at least 7000 steps a day can significantly improve eight major health outcomes – including reducing risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia and depressive symptoms,” Professor Ding said in a statement. Daily steps and their health benefits
The researchers went through different studies where the participants wore step counting devices, such as pedometers, accelerometers and fitness trackers, to track their daily step counts. They started comparing the health outcomes from 2000 steps to 1000-step increments. The objective was to see if there was any difference in the risk of early death or other major diseases.They found that walking 7000 steps a day reduced the risk of death by 47%, when compared with 2000 steps a day. The benefits of walking 7000 steps was almost identical to the benefits seen at walking 10,000 steps per day. 7000 steps slashed the dementia risk by 38%, with only a 7 percent extra reduction at 10,000 steps. The risk of type 2 diabetes fell by 22% from walking 10,000 steps a day and reduced to 27% at 12,000 steps. They noticed that significant improvements were seen in those who increased their average daily steps from 2000 to between 5000 and 7000 steps.
“For people who are already active, 10,000 steps a day is grea. But beyond 7000 steps, the extra benefits for most of the health outcomes we looked at were modest,” Dr Katherine Owen, co-author and chief analyst of the study from the School of Public Health, said. “Our research helps to shift the focus from perfection to progress. Even small increases in daily movement can lead to meaningful health improvements,” Professor Ding added.
