If you listened to the Walkingpost.com podcast episode a few weeks ago featuring Gait Happens, you’d already know the lofty peak of 10,000 steps a day is a myth.
Now, a major new study led by the University of Sydney in Australia suggests that walking 7,000 steps a day offers similar health benefits across several outcomes as walking 10,000.
Led by Melody Ding from the School of Public Health, the study was published in The Lancet Public Health and analysed data from 57 studies from 2014 to 2025 that were conducted in more than 10 countries including Australia, the US, UK and Japan.
The largest and most comprehensive review to date, the researchers examined the impact that different daily step counts have on the chance of dying from cardiovascular disease and cancer, and developing diseases such as cancer, type 2 diabetes, dementia and depression. Ding said the findings offer a more achievable benchmark for people who struggle to meet traditional exercise guidelines.
“Aiming for 7,000 steps is a realistic goal based on our findings, which assessed health outcomes in a range of areas that hadn’t been looked at before,” said Ding.
“However, for those who cannot yet achieve 7,000 steps a day, even small increases in step counts, such as increasing from 2,000 to 4,000 steps a day, are associated with significant health gain.
“We know daily step count is linked to living longer, but we now also have evidence that walking at least 7,000 steps a day can significantly improve eight major health outcomes – including reducing risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia and depressive symptoms.”
The researchers looked at studies in which participants wore step counting devices, such as pedometers, accelerometers and fitness trackers, to track their daily step counts. Starting at 2,000 steps, experts compared the health outcomes of people walking more steps a day at 1,000 step increments to see whether there was any difference in the risk of early death or other major diseases.
When compared with 2000 steps a day, researchers found that:
Walking 7,000 steps a day reduced the risk of death by 47%, which was almost identical to the benefit seen at walking 10,000 steps per day.
Dementia risk dropped by 38% from walking 7,000 steps a day, with only a 7% extra reduction at 10,000 steps.
Risk of type 2 diabetes fell by 22% from walking 10,000 steps a day and reduced to 27% at 12,000 steps.
Significant health improvements were seen when people increased their average daily steps from 2,000 to between 5,000 and 7,000 steps.
But just how much is 7,000 steps? Well, everyone’s stride is different, but it’s in the region of three miles.
“For people who are already active, 10,000 steps a day is great,” said Katherine Owen, co-author and chief analyst of the study from the School of Public Health.
“But beyond 7,000 steps, the extra benefits for most of the health outcomes we looked at were modest.”
The researchers are working with the Australian government to use the evidence from this study to inform future updates to physical activity guidelines.
“Our research helps to shift the focus from perfection to progress. Even small increases in daily movement can lead to meaningful health improvements,” Ding said.
Experts are calling for future studies to explore how step goals should vary based on age, health status and region, and to include diverse populations and longer-term data to strengthen the evidence. Ding said this kind of detail is rare and will be useful for health practitioners when tailoring advice for patients.
The 7,000-step guideline ties in with yet another internet ‘craze’ – 6-6-6 walking. It has nothing to do with the devil, it’s a new fitness regime trend where people walk at 6am or 6pm for 60 minutes, and features a six-minute warm-up and pot-walk warm-down. A 60 minute walk, depending on the pace, should result in 6,000 to 8,000 steps, tying in nicely with the results of the 7,000-step study.
