We all know we need to walk more… but ever wonder how many steps a day is healthy? 🚶‍♂️

Today, we are taking a visit to the enchanting country of Japan to see if we can find the answer.

We’re exploring Japan’s walking culture, the benefits of walking, and how many steps we need to take daily.

👉 If you just want the answer without the background: Adults aged 20 to 65 should walk 7,500+ steps per day.

But there’s more to it than that…

This is a long but interesting article, so let’s get into it!

Here’s the article at a glance:

1. Japan: the home of walking
2. The birth of manpo-kei
3. How many steps a day is healthy?
4. Why walk anyway?
5. The final word on how many steps a day is healthy

Japan: the home of walking

Welcome to Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo.

The busiest pedestrian crossing in the world and an unlikely tourist attraction with thousands crossing each day.

The vast majority of people walking through this bustling city are Japanese and each person has their own reason to make it to the other side.

It may be a sararīman heading to work in one of Shibuya’s sea of skyscrapers. It may be a student picking up some tasty okonomiyaki.

Or perhaps it’s somebody simply out to enjoy a walk.

Walking is ingrained into the culture of Japan – a nation that actually has a very limited formal workout tradition when compared to countries like the UK and USA.

While we may go to the gym to combat obesity (then post about it on Instagram to get likes), many Japanese people do not see themselves as big exercisers at all.

However, Japan’s obesity rates still remain the lowest of all other wealthy developed nations, at just 4.3%. For a country with a penchant for sumo wrestling, this is all the more impressive!

(In comparison, the UK and USA have eye-watering obesity rates of 27.8% and 36.2% respectively.) 😲

The birth of manpo-kei

While Leonardo Da Vinci is credited for creating the concept for the first step counter, it was the Japanese who brought it to the masses.

The story goes that in 1963, Dr Iwao Ohya, a clinician in Tokyo, approached a local engineer from the Yamasa company.

He wanted to create a step-counting device to combat the nation’s declining health, brought on by the rise of ‘convenience culture’.

Two years later the result was the mechanical pedometer capable of tracking steps, called manpo-kei. This was translated to English as ‘10,000 steps meter’.

The legend of the pedometer is that 10,000 steps was nothing but a marketing ploy to sell devices. However, it may not be as arbitrary as some people think.

In 1965, a research team led by a young academic called Dr Yoshiro Hatano established that the average Japanese person walked between 3,000 and 5,000 steps per day. This is around 2.5 miles.

Therefore, setting a target that would double the number of steps one took would naturally encourage more movement.

It worked.

Soon after the launch of the pedometer, people embraced the device and new walking associations popped up all over Japan to organise regular hikes that were measured with the Yamasa pedometer.

Today, it’s reported that Japanese people now take approximately 7,200 steps per day.

How many steps a day is healthy?

Before we delve too deeply into Japan’s walking culture, let’s return to our original question: how many steps a day is healthy?

Do you have to walk 10,000 steps per day to gain from walking’s many benefits?

In short, no.

A 2011 study co-authored by none other than Dr Hatano recommends different step counts depending on your age, gender, and ability.

For healthy adults aged 20 to 65, the recommended step count is actually 7,500+ per day.

This number rises the younger the person is.

For example, adolescents aged 12 to 19 require 10,000+ daily steps, while 11,500+ (girls) and 13,500+ (boys) is the aim for children between the ages of 6 to 11.

These are all good guidelines, yet it’s still worth walking more if you can.

Achieving 7,500 steps is a good effort (particularly if you have an office job). But if you have the capacity to walk 10,000, 12,000 or 15,000 then go for it!

Why walk anyway?

We’ve determined how many steps a day is healthy – upwards of 7,500 steps per day is a sensible target for healthy adults.

But what are the benefits of walking? Why should we walk more?

We’ve discussed this in many other articles on this site, including our article on walking to lose belly fat. However, let’s take a glance here.

There’s no hiding that the vast majority of modern life involves sitting and staying relatively still. Car to office to drive-thru to sofa. You barely have to stand these days.

This sedentarism is a colossal risk to your health.

In addition to turning off calorie- and fat-burning processes in the body, sedentary lifestyles have been linked to a myriad of health concerns.

These include strokes, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, various cancers, chronic pain, postural issues, and several mental health disorders.

The remedy is walking, with so many health-boosting qualities.

In addition to burning calories, walking can strengthen your heart, lowering both blood pressure and the risk of a heart attack.

Remember that the heart is a muscle and a pump, and by training it through walking, we are training it to be more efficient at delivering oxygen and nutrients to the body.

Meanwhile, walking can also toughen the muscles in your legs, particularly if you incorporate gradients like hills and stairs.

Additionally, it can ease joint pain by encouraging the flow of the lubricating synovial fluid in your joints.

In terms of digestive health, walking helps speed up peristalsis – the movement of food through your digestive tract. This can ease digestive complaints and contribute to a feeling of greater satiation.

Walking is equally beneficial to your mental health. It’s an effective way to reduce stress, anxiety and depression, while boosting creativity.

But to truly see these benefits manifest, walking must become a daily habit.

The final word on how many steps a day is healthy

The key takeaway from our time in Japan is that walking is such a powerful habit with great value to your health.

For this reason, it should be interwoven into your life wherever possible.

My advice is to take small walks multiple times each day. I tend to go for around three 15-20 minute daily walks in addition to my other walking, which adds up to around 8,000 steps.

Don’t forget to go for a longer walk on the weekend, like the Norwegians do.

Now, stop reading this and get your walking shoes on. No time like the present!