The widely recognised target of walking 10,000 steps daily did not originate from medical research, but rather from a 1960s marketing campaign for a pedometer, states Jack McNamara, a senior lecturer in clinical exercise physiology at the University of East London.
Despite the lack of initial scientific evidence for 10,000 steps as a specific health threshold, the idea gained popularity. McNamara notes that subsequent research did find health benefits associated with walking, preventing the concept from being dismissed as pseudoscience.
Walking has been shown to improve cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory health, reduce the risk of some cancers, and break up sedentary periods. However, systematic reviews and large-scale studies indicate that health benefits begin to show diminishing returns as step counts increase.
Significant health improvements are observed when individuals increase their daily steps from around 2,000 to 4,000. In contrast, the benefit of increasing steps from 8,000 to 10,000, or 10,000 to 12,000, is considerably smaller, though still present.
McNamara suggests that for those already achieving high step counts, incorporating higher-intensity exercise, such as running, swimming at pace, walking uphill, or power walking, could yield greater health benefits.