Are steps a useful goal, or is 10,000 an arbitrary number?

The number is arbitrary — it came from a 1960s Japanese pedometer marketing campaign — but the underlying idea holds up. Large studies show mortality benefit rising steeply from around 3,000 to 4,000 steps and continuing to improve up to roughly 7,000 to 8,000, after which the curve flattens. So the person going from 2,000 to 6,000 gains far more than the one going from 8,000 to 12,000. Steps are also a good goal because they are easy to measure and hard to lie about, which is more than can be said for most fitness targets.