{"id":101267,"date":"2025-07-29T05:28:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T05:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/101267\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T05:28:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T05:28:12","slug":"why-aiming-for-7000-steps-might-be-your-best-goal-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/101267\/","title":{"rendered":"Why aiming for 7,000 steps might be your best goal \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Research suggests walking 7,000 steps daily offers the same health benefits as 10,000 steps.<\/li>\n<li>Walking a minimum of 7,000 steps can minimize the risk of early death by 47%.<\/li>\n<li>Increasing from 2,000 to 4,000 daily steps is linked to significant health gains.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Take a walk, 10,000-step goal. A new study says you might be too demanding when it comes to boosting health.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Research from the University of Sydney shows that walking at least 7,000 steps a day offers about the same health benefits as the widely touted 10,000 steps we\u2019ve heard about for years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Just 7,000 steps a day can reduce the risk of premature death by up to 47%, per the study in the journal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lanpub\/home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lanpub\/home\">The Lancet Public Health<\/a>. The study focused on how much impact different daily step counts had on the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The team also examined the relationship between walking a certain number of steps and the risk of developing various diseases, including cancer, type 2 diabetes, dementia and depression. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cAiming for 7,000 steps is a realistic goal based on our findings, which assessed health outcomes in a range of areas that hadn\u2019t been looked at before,\u201d said professor Melody Ding, who led the study. \u201cHowever, for those who cannot yet achieve 7,000 steps a day, even small increases in step counts \u2014 such as increasing from 2,000 to 4,000 steps a day, are associated with significant health gain,&#8221; she said in a written statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cWe know daily step count is linked to living longer, but we now also have evidence that walking at least 7,000 steps a day can significantly improve eight major health outcomes, including reducing risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia and depressive symptoms,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The study\u2019s mechanics<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The study by researchers at the University of Sydney looked at data from nearly five dozen studies conducted between 2014 and 2025 in more than 10 countries, including the U.S., Australia, United Kingdom and Japan. It is the \u201clargest and most comprehensive review to date,\u201d per the researchers from the university\u2019s School of Public Health.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The researchers used pedometers, accelerometers and other fitness trackers to see how far study participants walked each day. Beginning with 2,000 steps, experts compared the health outcomes, looking at 1,000-step increments to see if the numbers made a difference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Per the news release, compared to 2,000 steps a day, they found:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Walking 7,000 steps a day reduced risk of death by 47% \u2014 almost identical to the benefit of walking 10,000 steps per day.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Dementia risk dropped by 38% at 7,000 steps a day, with just a 7% extra reduction at 10,000 steps.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Risk of type 2 diabetes fell by 22% from walking 10,000 steps a day and reduced to 27% at 12,000 steps.<\/li>\n<li>Significant health improvements were seen when people increased their average daily steps from 2,000 to between 5,000 and 7,000 steps.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">That doesn\u2019t mean you should slow down if you\u2019re already hitting the 10,000-step benchmark, said Dr. Katherine Owen, co-author and the study\u2019s chief analyst. But she added that the health benefits of the extra steps are \u201cmodest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Ding said the study \u201chelps to shift the focus from perfection to progress. Even small increases in daily movement can lead to meaningful health improvements.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">More study is needed to see if set goals should vary based on age, health status and region. <\/p>\n<p>10,000 steps a made-up number<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The study is not the first to say 10,000 steps isn\u2019t really scientific when it comes to health benefits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">As <a href=\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/ucan\/myth-debunked-10000-steps-a-day-is-required-for-good-health\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/ucan\/myth-debunked-10000-steps-a-day-is-required-for-good-health\/\">Northern Arizona University<\/a> reported in 2023, the number has been ingrained for years, but it\u2019s not like a scientific study declared that a magic number.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Rather it can be traced more than 60 years back to Japan, when a marketing campaign for a pedometer called the \u201cmanpo-kei\u201d gave the notion the patina of settled fact. \u201cManpo-kei\u201d means \u201c10,000 steps meter.\u201d And it was chosen because it was \u201ccatchy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The 2023 release notes other things to consider when raising or evaluating your activity level, including your own fitness level, intensity \u2014 which is needed to boost heart health \u2014 as an amble doesn\u2019t do much, and what kind of health outcome you want to achieve. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Per the article, \u201cResearch suggests that moderate-intensity physical activity for at least 150 minutes a week or vigorous-intensity activity for 75 minutes a week is a helpful benchmark for cardiovascular health \u2014 regardless of the number of steps. This can provide a gentle guide of what to shoot for, however, it\u2019s best to focus on your own individual starting point and increase gradually from there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Research suggests walking 7,000 steps daily offers the same health benefits as 10,000 steps. Walking a minimum of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":101268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[210,974,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-101267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-news-feed-national","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114934874660283609","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}