ARE YOU GETTING ENOUGH MOVEMENT INTO YOUR DAY?
Dr Philippa settles a family debate on the recommended daily step counts…
Q
Can you settle a debate in my family? We were sitting round the table having a good old Sunday roast and my daughter-inlaw suggested we all go for a walk after lunch. On the walk, which was lovely, she tracked her steps with her phone saying that she needs to hit ten thousand steps per day. Do you actually need to hit that number for health – should I be counting?
A
Happy to help and hope that you enjoyed the combination of the roast, the walk, and the company! The idea that you should aim to walk ten thousand steps a day was actually started as a very clever marketing campaign. The slogan was coined in Japan to help sell pedometers, which count your steps, along with a campaign that physical activity is beneficial to your health. It became so well ingrained that people now assume somehow that it is absolute health advice! There have been many, many studies which show that walking is good for your health since then, but actually the exact number of steps itself has not been set at that ten thousand mark. In fact, whether you do eight thousand or eleven thousand doesn’t seem to matter as much as the fact that you are moving and keeping active. Studies have compared people doing less than five thousand steps each day (a sedentary lifestyle) which those doing 10,000 steps, therefore it may be that seven thousand or eight thousand has the same benefits and rewards as ten thousand.
So I wouldn’t get too bogged down with the need to count steps or particular targets. Instead aim to keep physically active and moving as much as possible. The advice is to aim for 30 minutes of activity five times a week.