“10,000 steps a day”: the story of a goal that has no scientific basis

Five fruits and vegetables, and also… 10,000 steps a day. You probably know these easy-to-remember public health slogans. But what you may not know is that sometimes they have no… scientific basis. This is the case of the famous 10,000 steps per day often put forward by manufacturers of connected objects.

This number actually comes from… marketing. In the 1960s, the Japanese company Yamasa Clock marketed a pedometer called Manpo-Kei, which is French for “measuring 10,000 steps.” This round number is easy to remember, which is why it has gradually become ingrained in the mouths of companies and even some doctors, although no clinical trials have been conducted.

“The goal is to motivate ourselves, our community likes to highlight their achievements on social media, for example,” admitted Marc Besnard, product manager for activity trackers at Withings, in 2019 in Le Parisien.

The beneficial effect of “a few steps a day”

These 10,000 steps a day are sometimes presented, as on the Decathlon website, as the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation. Except that the UN agency does not rely on this criterion, it assured Franceinfo in June, but rather on a minimum duration of physical activity.

However, everyone agrees that walking is good for your health. Taking more measures is associated with a progressive reduction in mortality as well as the risk of cardiovascular disease in older people, according to a review of multiple scientific studies published last year.

In 2019, American researchers concluded that the risk of death no longer decreased after 7,500 steps per day. Another team came to the same conclusion in 2022… but this time from 10,000 steps per day. However, “the benefits of walking start with just a few steps a day,” one of its participants, Borja del Pozo Cruz, tells The Conversation.