Health & Medicine
Easier Exercise Hack: No Need To Make 10,000 Steps A Day To Be Fit
Brooke James
First Posted: Oct 17, 2016 05:26 AM EDT
If you're one of the many people who goes around the day with a fitness tracker around your wrist, you may be counting the steps to 10,000 on a daily basis. However, if you can't meet such a high number, you don't have to despair: you'll still survive.
According to Live Science, researchers analyzed information from 3,400 US adults who took part in a national health survey where they were asked to wear an accelerometer for a week, to keep track of their daily steps as well as their pace. They assessed participants based on a number of health measures that could indicate their risks of chronic diseases like waist circumference, body mass index, blood pressure, among others.
Of all those who are involved in the study, only one-fifth of them took nearly 10,000 steps daily. Overall, the more steps they took, the better they did in the health measures. However, those who took only about 5,000 to 7,000 still "displayed favorable values."
The study's co-author, John Schuna Jr, who is an assistant professor of kinesiology in Oregon State University's College of Human Health and Sciences, said in a statement that a little bit of physical activity is still better than none, but more is still better than less.
To make up for the 10,000 step count, researchers usually recommend that people engage in "moderately intense" physical activity for 30 minutes a day. This roughly translates to activities that have more than 100 steps per minute. People who take about 70 to 80 steps per minute during peak cadence also have favorable health measure values.
With those numbers, researchers noted that there is no need to finish the 10,000 steps a day, but there is no reason not to aim for it either. At the very least, people will still have to take 3,000 steps - at a brisk pace to be able to stay healthy.
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First Posted: Oct 17, 2016 05:26 AM EDT
If you're one of the many people who goes around the day with a fitness tracker around your wrist, you may be counting the steps to 10,000 on a daily basis. However, if you can't meet such a high number, you don't have to despair: you'll still survive.
According to Live Science, researchers analyzed information from 3,400 US adults who took part in a national health survey where they were asked to wear an accelerometer for a week, to keep track of their daily steps as well as their pace. They assessed participants based on a number of health measures that could indicate their risks of chronic diseases like waist circumference, body mass index, blood pressure, among others.
Of all those who are involved in the study, only one-fifth of them took nearly 10,000 steps daily. Overall, the more steps they took, the better they did in the health measures. However, those who took only about 5,000 to 7,000 still "displayed favorable values."
The study's co-author, John Schuna Jr, who is an assistant professor of kinesiology in Oregon State University's College of Human Health and Sciences, said in a statement that a little bit of physical activity is still better than none, but more is still better than less.
To make up for the 10,000 step count, researchers usually recommend that people engage in "moderately intense" physical activity for 30 minutes a day. This roughly translates to activities that have more than 100 steps per minute. People who take about 70 to 80 steps per minute during peak cadence also have favorable health measure values.
With those numbers, researchers noted that there is no need to finish the 10,000 steps a day, but there is no reason not to aim for it either. At the very least, people will still have to take 3,000 steps - at a brisk pace to be able to stay healthy.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone