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I asked a professor of public health how many steps a day we should be taking based on her new study—here’s what she had to say
Walking is my main form of exercise at the moment, and I take a lot of steps every day while testing shoes for my guide to the best walking shoes.
I’ve also interviewed several experts to learn more about walking, asking them about the exercises you should be doing if you walk a lot and the minimum number of steps you should take every day.
So, when a new study on the recommended step count was published in The Lancet, I was excited to see what the research team had discovered.
I managed to catch one of the study’s authors, Professor Melody Ding of the University of Sydney, just before she got on a flight.
She kindly answered some of my burning questions about the study, the conclusions we should draw from it, and what the next step (pardon the pun) in the research will be.
Melody Ding is an epidemiologist and population behavioural scientist based at the University of Sydney. She works at the intersection of physical activity, epidemiology and chronic disease prevention.
In 2012, she received her PhD from the Joint Doctoral Program in Public Health at the University of California San Diego and San Diego State University in the USA. Since then, she has led multiple research projects into physical activity and is the co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Physical Activity and Health.
How many steps per day should I be taking?
The new study concludes that 7,000 steps per day is the sweet spot. It’s an achievable goal for most people, which also marks the point of diminishing returns for health benefits.
Thanks to an older 2023 study, we already know that walking as little as 3,867 steps a day reduces the risk of all-cause mortality (death from any cause).
Taking more steps will still benefit your health, reducing your risk of cardiovascular events, improving depressive symptoms, and lowering your risk of diabetes.
However, the new study shows that these significant improvements in health benefits plateau at around 7,000 steps.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
What makes this study different from others?
Older studies identified the ideal daily step count as somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000 steps for the under-60s. This new study takes into account even more data, so the authors could pinpoint a very specific figure.
“Previous meta-analyses also tended to only include mortality and cardiovascular outcomes,” adds Ding. “Our analysis is much broader in scope and includes the largest number of studies.”
She also explains that a lot of public health literature relies on the number of minutes someone walks, which can be difficult to track accurately.
“We know physical activity is beneficial for health, but it is generally harder for the public to track how many minutes of activity they do every day because the activities can be short bouts and incidental,” says Ding.
Her team decided to focus on step count instead, as most modern phones feature a pedometer and a lot of the general public now use fitness trackers.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
What’s next for step-count research?
Ding says the next step for step-count research will probably be around cadence—the number of steps taken per minute and the speed at which one walks.
This research could reveal an ideal speed to aim for, alongside an ideal step count.
Cadence is mentioned in this study, but no firm conclusion is reached. I asked Ding why.
“It is inconclusive, mostly because there are many different metrics, so it is hard to compare,” she said.
“The field still needs to agree on which metrics are the most relevant to what health outcomes. So, watch this space, hopefully we can answer it in a few years.”
