Back in August I addressed the concept of ‘10,000 steps a day.’ You can read about it here. Now comes the American Heart Association with further insights into this idea. I have said repeatedly that walking is the Cinderella of the exercise world – totally unappreciated.
It’s a worthy, healthy goal to take 10,000 steps each day, but that magic number didn’t come from doctors or physical trainers.
In the mid-1960s, Japanese marketers trying to sell a pedometer named it manpo-kei, which generally translates to “10,000 step meter” in English. The Japanese character for “10,000” roughly resembles a person walking.
“It’s a nice clean number and it makes a good marketing message,” said Amanda Paluch, assistant professor in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. “You can see why it stuck. But there was not a lot of science behind it.”
Health Secrets of a SuperAger 
I’d forgotten all about this explanation! I don’t always get to 10K but it’s a decent number to try to attain, regardless of where the number came from.
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