Is there any benefit to taking 10,000 steps a day? | Base Construction

Audit expert: Wang Linyu

Deputy Chief Physician, Department of Orthopedics, Second Affiliated Hospital of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Since WeChat launched the step count ranking list , brushing the step count to get on the list has become a daily routine for many people. As more and more people participate in this activity, brushing the step count has begun to become a phenomenal activity.

In order to gain a prominent position on the leaderboard, countless people would walk back and forth in the living room even in bad weather, with the number of steps easily reaching 20,000 or 30,000. They can be said to be having a lot of fun.

Source: hippopx

Ordinary people who know they can’t compete with these “roll kings” will also try to reach the passing line of “10,000 steps”. After all, everyone now says that “walking 10,000 steps a day can make the body healthier”. However, is there a rigorous scientific basis behind this statement? Can this standard be applied to people of different physiques and ages?

Today, let’s study together the saying “10,000 steps a day”.

Where did the idea of ​​10,000 steps a day come from?

Regarding the claim that taking 10,000 steps a day can effectively exercise the body, no scientists in the relevant field have publicly promoted it.

However, before this, many so-called health media on the Internet have vigorously promoted the benefits of walking 10,000 steps a day, saying that this can exercise the body, lose weight, reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, etc. However, no media has been able to provide reliable scientific evidence behind this statement. It has spread rapidly among the public simply because it "sounds reasonable."

At the same time, on the step rankings of platforms such as WeChat, when your step count exceeds 10,000, the system will automatically mark your steps in red. This has unknowingly deepened people's obsession with 10,000 steps, and gradually made more and more people believe in this statement.

Source: Screenshot from WeChat

In fact, the idea of ​​10,000 steps a day originated from a marketing strategy of a pedometer in Japan.

In 1964, Japan was preparing for the Tokyo Olympics, and there was a wave of sports enthusiasm among the people. If you sell some sports equipment that can satisfy the people's enthusiasm for sports at this time, you will undoubtedly make a lot of money.

Therefore, a pedometer called "Ten Thousand Steps" came into being. This pedometer is small, portable, easy to use, and its usage scenario - walking, is also the daily life of countless people. Therefore, it quickly became popular and became Japan's leading "Internet celebrity product" at the time.

Pedometer source: 1mmed.com

The slogan "10,000 steps a day" created to promote the product also became the goal for people who bought this pedometer, and successfully made them believe that 10,000 steps a day can be beneficial to the body and mind.

Are there any benefits to taking 10,000 steps a day?

I Min Lee, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard University, conducted an observational study on the correlation between taking 10,000 steps a day and physical health. She recruited about 18,000 American elderly women volunteers with an average age of 72, and gave them devices to record their steps. The devices eventually collected walking data from about 16,000 volunteers, as well as other information collected by researchers during follow-up.

Source丨Association of Step Volume and Intensity With All-Cause Mortality in Older Women

The above figure is a correlation curve between the number of steps and mortality rate drawn by researchers based on these research data. From the figure, we can roughly understand the correlation between the number of steps these elderly people walk every day and the mortality rate.

The mortality rate of elderly people who walk no more than 3,000 steps a day is significantly higher than that of those who walk 4,500 steps a day. After 4,500 steps, increasing the number of steps walked per day can further reduce the mortality rate. When the number of steps walked per day exceeds 7,500 steps, the mortality rate begins to stabilize , and even if the number of steps walked per day increases, the mortality rate will not be further reduced.

This study shows that there is indeed a certain correlation between the number of steps taken per day and physical health. However , at least for the elderly, it is not necessary to reach the "passing line" of 10,000 steps a day to ensure good health. At the same time, the elderly are relatively weak, and 10,000 steps a day is a very difficult goal for them. Gritting their teeth and walking these 10,000 steps is likely to cause knee joint injuries.

Source: hippopx

In general, there is currently no reliable data or theory to support the claim that taking 10,000 steps a day can ensure better health . This claim itself is just a marketing strategy.

Moreover, walking itself does not bring much help to the health of ordinary young people. This exercise is not intense enough and cannot achieve the desired effect for most people.

If your purpose is to exercise or lose weight, swimming or cycling are more suitable choices.

Source: pixabay

As many things in our daily lives, such as the calories we consume, the amount of water we drink, and the amount of sleep we get, begin to be quantified, countless averages and standards based on these data are being pursued by more and more people, making some people who find it difficult to meet the standards increasingly anxious.

But in fact, most of these standards have not been rigorously scientifically proven , and are likely to be simple data summaries or "snap shots", which are not worth pursuing. If you want to live a healthy and happy life, the best way is to do what you can according to your physical condition.