How many steps do you take in a lifetime?
A large study using smartphone accelerometer data from 717,000 people put the global average at 4,961 steps a day, with enormous national variation: Hong Kong averaged 6,880 and Indonesia 3,513. At about 5,000 steps a day over 80 years that is roughly 146 million steps. At a 75 cm stride, that is about 110,000 km on foot. Someone hitting the popular 10,000-step target every day would double it.
How the figure is arrived at
5,000 steps/day × 365.25 × 80 years = 146 million steps; × 0.75 m per step = 110,000 km. The step-count input is unusually good for a behavioural figure because it comes from passive phone sensors rather than self-report, though it under-counts anyone who leaves their phone behind.
How confident it is
- Low estimate
- 100,000,000
- High estimate
- 250,000,000
- Spread
- 2.5× between the bounds
The 10,000-steps target has no clinical origin — it began as a 1960s Japanese pedometer marketing slogan, because the character for 10,000 resembles a walking figure.
Other every day counts
- How many babies are born each day? about 360,000 — roughly four every second
- How many people die each day? about 170,000 — roughly two every second
- How many Google searches are made every day? roughly 8.5 billion — about 100,000 a second
- How many emails are sent every day? about 360 billion
- How many times does your heart beat in a lifetime? about 2.5 billion
- How many cups of coffee are drunk every day? roughly 2.5 billion
- How many photos are taken every day? roughly 5 billion a day — about 2 trillion a year
- How many hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute? 500 hours a minute — about 720,000 hours a day
- How many pizzas are sold every day? somewhere between 3 and 8 million a day in the United States
- How many words do we speak a day? about 16,000
- How many breaths do you take in a lifetime? about 600 million
- How many messages are sent every day? about 100 billion on WhatsApp alone
Common questions
- How many steps do you take in a lifetime?
- roughly 150 million — about 110,000 km
- How is that estimated?
- 5,000 steps/day × 365.25 × 80 years = 146 million steps; × 0.75 m per step = 110,000 km. The step-count input is unusually good for a behavioural figure because it comes from passive phone sensors rather than self-report, though it under-counts anyone who leaves their phone behind.
Related pages
- How many babies are born each day? about 360,000 — roughly four every second
- How many people die each day? about 170,000 — roughly two every second
- How many Google searches are made every day? roughly 8.5 billion — about 100,000 a second
- How many emails are sent every day? about 360 billion
- How many times does your heart beat in a lifetime? about 2.5 billion
- How many cups of coffee are drunk every day? roughly 2.5 billion
- How many photos are taken every day? roughly 5 billion a day — about 2 trillion a year
- How many hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute? 500 hours a minute — about 720,000 hours a day
- How many people are there in the world? Living things and the natural world
- How many stars are there in the universe? Space and the universe
- How many countries are there in the world? Things people built
- How many bones are in the human body? The human body
- How many grains of sand are there on Earth? Living things and the natural world
- How many ants are there in the world? Living things and the natural world
Sources
- Calculated on this page — At One Place