It’s not always about the distance in which you walk
By now we’ve all heard the advice that you should aim to walk around 10,000 steps a day in order to stay healthy.
The argument has gained momentum in the past couple of decades in order to combat the rise in sedentary lifestyles, which see most of us spend our days in the office and evenings at home scrolling for hours on our phones.
However, the idea may not be completely accurate after all, a health expert has now revealed there is another important thing you need to do every day in order to look after our bodies.
We all know that moving is important to maintaining a healthy lifestyle (Getty Stock Images)
Where does the idea of walking 10,000 steps a day come from?
Contrary to popular belief, the advice to walk 10,000 steps a day didn’t come from doctors, but instead a very successful marketing campaign for the Tokyo 1964 Olympics, according to Nuffield Health.
Ahead of the summer games kicking off, Japanese company Yamasa unveiled the world’s first ever pedometer, and when it came to marketing the device, the company noticed that the Japanese character for 10,000 happened to resemble a man walking and decided to name the device manpo-kei, which translates as ‘10,000-step metre’.
The rest, as they say, is history.
That’s right my friends, the global standard for a healthy amount of walking came from a Japanese company trying to shift their step-counters.
Talk about genius marketing.
Turns out your walking pace is just as important as your step count (Getty Stock Images)
Is walking 10,000 steps a day actually beneficial to our health?
Although walking 10,000 steps a day doesn’t have its original roots in science, later studies would reveal that Yamasa weren’t actually that far off with their goal to get everyone walking more.
A study from the JAMA Internal Medicine Journal found that an increased step rate amongst older people correlated with a lower risk of mortality rates.
However, it should be noted that there is no ‘one-size fits all’ when it comes to how much you need to be moving every day, with the Harvard Medical School adding in 2019 that health benefits for women in their study plateaued at around 7,500 steps a day, which means you don’t have to beat yourself up if you don’t hit the full 10k steps.
According to a study released in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, our step cadence is just as important as how many steps we walk per day
But were you aware that step count alone isn’t enough to keep us healthy? (Getty Stock Images)
Dr Elroy Aguiar’s findings revealed that ideally we should aim for a walking pace of 100-plus steps per minute as this can unlock greater health benefits for our bodies.
Dr Aguiar was also keen to note that 100-plus steps per minute isn’t as daunting as it sounds, adding that most people use a pace of ‘110 to 115 steps per minute’ while walking down the street – as it’s more so about the intensity of which you exercise rather than the amount, which he says has been shown by other studies to not be ‘significant unless you also do it at a higher intensity’.
“100 is a very achievable number,” he added via The Independent. “If you wanted to bump the walk up to a vigorous intensity, you could walk at around 130 steps per minute.
“If you move within that range or slightly above, you can shift gears and get more benefit from the activity you’re doing.”
Featured Image Credit: Getty stock images
