Get Active – 10,000 steps a day is achievable!
A sedentary life featuring a lot of sitting around is an excellent strategy for maintaining obesity.
Getting up on your feet and walking a little more is an important ingredient in the overall recipe for recovering from obesity.
How much walking each day should we be doing?
Many health promotion professionals and walking enthusiasts advise 10,000 steps a day as a good aim. 10,000 steps is about 8 kilometres, which might sound a long way, but you’ll be surprised how the number of steps accumulates just moving around during the day when you’re not sitting down.
Here is an activity classification system based on the number of steps per day:
- Less than 5000 steps – SEDENTARY
- 5000 – 7500 – LOW ACTIVE
- 7500 – 10,000 – SOMEWHAT ACTIVE
- 10,000 – 12,500 – ACTIVE
- More than 12,500 – HIGHLY ACTIVE
The average American apparently walks 5900 – 6900 steps per day, which is likely to be very similar to the average New Zealander. People with higher BMIs have been shown to take fewer steps than people with lower BMIs.
If you find you’re taking less than 10,000 steps a day, you may want to increase your steps. Be careful not to overdo it while you undertake an increase though. Increasing the number of steps over several months rather than doubling them overnight is the sustainable way to go.
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