How many steps a day by age?
The short answer
Step targets fall with age. Children are most active, and the research links 11,000 to 15,000 steps a day to the hour of activity they are meant to get. For adults under 60, the benefit to lifespan in a large 2022 meta-analysis kept growing up to 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day. For adults 60 and over, it levelled off sooner, at 6,000 to 8,000.
There are two different kinds of number here, and it helps to keep them apart: what people of each age typically walk, and what the research links to health. The table has both.
Steps a day by age
| Age | What people typically walk | What research links to health |
|---|---|---|
| 4 to 6 | 10,000-14,000, with 60-100 minutes of activity (limited evidence) | |
| Children | Boys 12,000-16,000, girls 10,000-13,000 | Boys 13,000-15,000, girls 11,000-12,000, for 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity |
| Teenagers | Falling steadily to about 8,000-9,000 by age 18 | 10,000-11,700, for 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity |
| Adults under 60 | 4,000-18,000 | 7,000-8,000 for minimal recommended activity, benefit levelling off at 8,000-10,000 |
| Adults 60+ | 2,000-9,000 for healthy older adults | Benefit levelling off at 6,000-8,000, about 7,000-10,000 on days with 30 minutes of activity |
The typical figures and the activity translations come from three reviews by Catrine Tudor-Locke and colleagues (2011), one each for children and adolescents, adults, and older adults. The “levelling off” figures come from the 2022 meta-analysis described below.
Why the targets fall with age
The clearest evidence comes from a 2022 meta-analysis in The Lancet Public Health (Paluch and colleagues) that pooled 15 studies of 47,471 adults, followed for a median of seven years. The more steps people took, the lower their risk of dying during the study, but the curve flattened at different points for different ages. For adults 60 and over, risk kept falling up to about 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day. For adults under 60, it kept falling up to about 8,000 to 10,000.
That does not mean extra steps stop helping. It means most of the benefit has arrived by that point. And because older adults typically walk less, as the table shows, a realistic target for them sits lower too.
Where 10,000 fits
For healthy adults, the Tudor-Locke review of adults calls 10,000 steps a day “reasonable”, while noting that many people live in “low active” populations well below it. The famous number started as the name of a pedometer, not a study, and the research has since put most of the benefit lower. Is 10,000 steps a day good? has the full story.
What do those numbers mean in miles?
For an adult of average height, about 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in):
| Steps a day | Distance |
|---|---|
| 6,000 | about 2.6 miles, 4.2 km |
| 7,000 | about 3.1 miles, 4.9 km |
| 8,000 | about 3.5 miles, 5.6 km |
| 10,000 | about 4.4 miles, 7.0 km |
Children take shorter steps, so the same counts cover less ground for them. Each number has its own page: 6,000, 7,000, 8,000, 10,000.
Recommended steps by age to lose weight
There is no research that sets different step targets for weight loss by age. The studies on walking and weight measure the effect of adding activity, not totals by age group. How many steps a day to lose weight covers what they did find.
Walking with a finish line
The hard part of walking more is not the walking. It is having a reason to go out today. reTrek gives your walks a finish line: pick a famous route, like the Camino de Santiago or the Inca Trail, and every walk moves you further along it, with a short film about the place waiting at each milestone. You stop looking for a spare moment to walk and start walking to reach the next milestone.
Walk it with a friend and pool your steps, or race them there. Everest Base Camp is free. Get reTrek.