Tracking Exercise by Steps or Minutes? Study Finds Either Method Boosts Health

Tracking Exercise by Steps or Minutes? Study Finds Either Method Boosts Health

• Some people like to count their daily steps, while others prefer to exercise for a certain amount of time each day or week.
• Luckily, either method improves health, a new study finds.
• Exercise targets based on step count or minutes are equally linked to lower risks of early death and heart disease
• Personal preferences likely play a key role when setting up an exercise plan
• For some, especially younger people, exercise may involve activities like tennis, soccer, walking, or jogging, which can be easily tracked with steps
• It may include bike rides or swimming, where tracking the duration of exercise is simpler
• Current U.S. exercise guidelines focus on minutes—at least 150 minutes weekly of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity.
• But smartwatches have made it easier than ever to track step counts, raising the question of whether steps would be better for setting exercise goals
• Existing physical activity guidelines focus mainly on duration and intensity but lack step-based recommendations
• With more people using smartwatches to measure their steps and overall health, we saw the importance of comparing step-based measurements to time-based targets in their link to health outcomes—is one better than the other?
• Researchers analyzed data from more than 14,000 women in the National Women’s Health Study.
• Between 2011 and 2015, participants 62 and older wore motion trackers for seven days to record their physical activity, only removing the devices for sleep- or water-related activities
• On average, the participants did 62 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week and accumulated nearly 5,200 steps per day.
• During an average follow-up of nine years, about 9% of participants died, and 4% developed heart disease.
• Researchers found that the most active women had a 30% to 40% lower risk of death or heart disease, whether they counted minutes or steps.
• Furthermore, women whose physical activity levels were in the top three-quarters lived longer than those in the bottom quarter by an average of 2.2 months based on minutes and 2.3 months based on steps.
• The survival advantage persisted regardless of differences in body mass index
• Both steps and minutes have pros and cons for tracking exercise goals.
• Step counts can vary significantly between a 20-year-old and an 80-year-old who walk for 30 minutes at moderate intensity
• On the other hand, steps are easy to measure and less open to interpretation compared to time-based exercise intensity
• Steps also capture the physical activity in everyday life, not just exercise time. That’s the type of activity that's most common among older people
• “That’s why it’s important for physical activity guidelines to offer multiple ways to reach goals.". “Movement looks different for everyone, and nearly all forms of movement are beneficial to our health.”