How many steps is 1 km walking?

If the average stride length is 80 centimetres, it takes 1250 steps to walk one kilometre.

smh.com.au - The 10,000-step question - Sydney Morning Herald

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Australian adults average 7400 steps a day, according to the 2011-12 Australian Health Survey. The survey revealed that fewer than one in five adults recorded 10,000 steps a day on average. Other studies show that the Japanese walk an average of 7168 steps a day, the Swiss 9650 and the unfeasibly healthy Amish, who defy all technology, are an exercise researcher's joy with 18,425. Americans average just under 5000 steps, outstriding the British, who average 3000 to 4000 steps a day. At Edinburgh University, exercise psychologists have estimated that the average Briton covers about 130 kilometres less a year on foot than a decade ago. So, if your fitness tracker has an embedded heart-rate monitor, you might want to skip the next couple of paragraphs for fear of it going off scale. We know that walking boosts mood, lowers stress and quickens thinking, and that it has been shown to control blood-sugar levels, reduce cholesterol and enhance lung function. But how much more walking are we expected to achieve and what do we expect its effects to be? Findings from a collaborative study involving 3127 adult volunteers and 14 researchers from the US, Canada, Sweden and France suggest that for women under 50 and all men, walking 10,000 steps a day is not enough to help control weight. Professor Anders Raustorp, a Swedish academic and physiotherapist who was one of the leading scientists involved in the study, said women aged between 18 and 40 should aim for at least 12,000 steps, and 11,000 for the over-40s. For men, the goal should be 12,000 steps a day if aged 18 to 50 and 11,000 beyond that age. Previous research by the same team had recommended that girls aged between six and 12 should accumulate 12,000 steps a day and boys 15,000 a day. Yet such levels are only a starting point. For adults, losing weight, not just maintaining it, requires more effort, the evidence suggests. Think about almost doubling the much-heralded 10,000 total and you would be closer to the mark. "It's a less palatable message, but really an adult's aim should be 16,000 to 18,000 steps if they want to shed kilograms," Esliger says. "And that's on top of incidental, non-exercise activity like housework and gardening." For the otherwise sedentary, you could be looking at 25,000 steps or about 20 kilometres a day. Esliger concedes there is no "one size fits all" tally, but the less fit you are to start with, the greater the number of steps you will need to walk each day to make a difference. Slacking won't cut the mustard. If the average stride length is 80 centimetres, it takes 1250 steps to walk one kilometre. Put simply, someone weighing 70 kilograms would use about 1840 kilojoules while covering their 10,000 daily steps. To lose weight, you need to use up about 2510 more kilojoules than you consume every day. All you need is a blueberry muffin or a large hot chocolate and you are back to where you started. It makes for slow progress. Joanna Hall, who runs WalkActive, the UK's largest commercial walking fitness program, agrees that much of the advice about the activity is "old hat". What matters, says Hall, an exercise scientist, is consistency, particularly when it comes to weight loss. "It's a big misconception that you can just shuffle around totting up your 10,000 steps and that's it for the day," Hall says. "Yes, people need much more than is suggested, but it's unrealistic for an exercise-phobic person to set out and do 18,000 steps a day. We recommend 7500 steps every single day and, on top of that, four faster 'pace' walks of at least 14,000 steps a week." Studies commissioned by WalkActive and conducted at London South Bank University's physiology laboratories last year showed that this amount of walking pays off. "Not only will you lose weight but good technique means your posture improves and that there is significantly less impact on joints," Hall says. "But it needs to be done every day."

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Picking up the pace is an option if you simply can't bear the prospect of so many steps. "If your steps get quicker, then you can cut the duration," Esliger says. "If you are jogging or running your steps, then the higher intensity means that you can effectively chop the 16,000 to 18,000 figure in half." If that doesn't quite lessen the blow, then confirmation that, for some, anything is better than nothing should ease your conscience. A report in UK medical journal The Lancet found that adding 2000 moderately paced walking steps (or 20 minutes) a day to regular activity could help cut the risk of heart attacks and strokes by 8 per cent among those most vulnerable, and that making that an extra 4000 more steps (or 40 minutes of walking over and above normal daily movement) could match the gains obtained from taking a cholesterol-lowering drug. Last year, a study conducted by the US National Institutes of Health suggested that 6000 or more steps a day is enough to protect those with osteoarthritis of the knee (or those at risk of getting it) from suffering serious mobility problems. For most of us, though, the recommendation is to keep on walking and to not stop, even when your tracker tells you that it's okay to ease off for the day. "However the current guidelines are dressed up," says Esliger, "the reality is that if you are overweight and want to lose weight, or if your fitness needs improving, you need to walk more." ARE YOU GOING THE DISTANCE?

3000 STEPS Distance: 2.4 kilometres. What it means: 6 laps of a running track. Approximate time taken: 30 minutes. Category: couch potato/sedentary.

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5000 STEPS Distance: 4 kilometres. What it means: 10 laps of a running track. Approximate time taken: 60 minutes. Category: people who walk less than this are considered to be sedentary. 10,000 STEPS Distance: 8 kilometres. What it means: 20 laps of a running track. Approximate time taken: 1 hour, 40 minutes. Category: walk 5000 to 7499 steps daily and you have what's considered to be "a low active lifestyle"; 7500 to 9999 steps a day and you are "fairly active". 15,000 STEPS Distance: 12 kilometres. What it means: 30 laps of a running track. Approximate time taken: 2 ½ hours. Category: should be a minimum target if you are already generally active but want to lose weight. 20,000 STEPS Distance: 16 kilometres What it means: 40 laps of a running track Approximate time taken: 3½ hours Category: about 18,000 steps is a good target for fitness and weight loss if you are already fairly active.

smh.com.au - The 10,000-step question - Sydney Morning Herald