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A large number of exercise apps have a target of 10,000 steps per day, such as the default fitness tracker on Galaxy Watches and so forth. This equates to perhaps 1.5–2 hours of walking for most people, depending on pace.

However, official exercise recommendations are often lower: for instance, the US Department of Health recommends 150–300 minutes of moderate exercise per week, which is under 45 minutes per day on the high end; similarly, the Mexican government recommends 30–60 minutes of moderate exercise per day.

As such, where does the common fitness app recommendation of 10,000 steps come from? Is it based on specific research?

Obie 2.0
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10,000 steps goal is not based on any particular research, but on a toy (Manpo-Kei) sold in Japan in 60s, and associating 10,000 with a very large number (in Chinese: a synonym for infinitely large number). Obviously a great selling slogan.

The amount of minutes of cardio you need per week to keep yourself healthy is highly disputed and I've seen a lot of articles with contradicting conclusions. Surely exercise is healthy, but there are other forms of exercise that doesn't involve steps, like cycling, swimming or rowing.

As for cited recommendation, they actually match. Walking is not a moderate exercise, on Garmin it's below threshold for detecting moderate activity minutes. 45 minutes of running should give you about 10 km, which translates to 8-10k steps.

Danubian Sailor
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  • Isn't running heavy exercise? Also, it sounds as if you are saying that neither governmental exercise recommendations nor the target of 10,000 steps are based on research, but rather on Chinese idioms and antique Japanese toys?? Do you have any evidence to back up this latter idea? – Obie 2.0 Aug 23 '22 at 20:18
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    @Obie if you google for Mampo-Kei, you'll find a lot of versions of the same story. I tend not to pick any because most of them are written as click baits (as most of fitness articles in general). Governmental recommendations are another thing. If you find out statistical evidence that people doing 10k steps a day are healthier than couch sitters, it's enough to file a recommendation. – Danubian Sailor Aug 23 '22 at 20:25
  • Huh, TIL. Here's a couple of articles that agree with the answer: National Post and McGill. – C. Lange Aug 23 '22 at 23:43
  • I don't think there's any serious question whether 10k steps is better than sitting on the couch all day but the specific number is in question. Does it have to be 10k? Is 'only' getting 8k not enough? Whether this number is based on a toy (it probably is) or was just picked because it's a nice round number it doesn't seem to be based on any research. If it was then that would be mentioned every time this number is questioned, which is often. – Eric Nolan Aug 24 '22 at 13:09