Name: Why you might only need 7,000 steps a day
Uploaded: 2025-12-28T21:01:20.000Z
Duration: 2 min 22 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Whether it's a New Year's resolution or just a way to stay healthy,

To-infinitive

many Canadians want to increase their daily steps.

Basic quantifiers

So what's the magic number for how many steps in a day you really need?

My average is about 15,000 a day with the dog.

This Pickering, Ontario couple aims high, but they admit focusing on a number can be tricky.

If you concentrate on steps, I think that's...

I don't know, it's just kind of practical.

This walking group for people 55 and up focuses more on just getting moving and staying independent

rather than hitting a specific step count.

At one point the idea was everyone should do 10,000.

And now there's some query back and forth.

The notion of getting 10,000 steps per day isn't actually based on science, but for marketing.

It was tied to ads for a Japanese pedometer 60 years ago as part of a campaign linked to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

The English translation is literally 10,000 step counter.

The scientific director for participaction says there are better ways to think about steps than a decades old marketing ploy.

Look for those little opportunities where you can break up those extended periods of sitting.

Can you get off a transit stop sooner or a little bit later?

It can also mean walking a bit farther, a bit faster, or swapping an escalator ride for the stairs.

But if you do want to focus on a number, research suggests it might be lower than you think.

Various recent studies show daily step counts in the thousands may cut mortality rates.

And only around up to 7,000 steps per day are needed to see those benefits.

At around 7,000 steps a day, we start to see a little bit plateauing of health effects.

This researcher says it's all about hitting realistic goals.

If you tend to be the kind of people who are lingering around 4,000,

trying to bring it up all the way to 10,000 might be a little bit out of reach.

Of course, when it comes to staying healthy, it's all a step in the right direction.