Pedometers and Public Health Catrine Tudor-Locke, PhD, FACSM Associate Professor of Health Promotion Walking Research Laboratory Department of Exercise.

Pedometers and Public Health

Catrine Tudor-Locke, PhD, FACSMAssociate Professor of Health PromotionWalking Research LaboratoryDepartment of Exercise and WellnessArizona State University

Internal Mechanism

Mass Distribution isNot the Answer

Hardware Pedometer

Software Guidelines Protocols Detailed program

templates

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Mean Steps/Day

Pe

rce

nt

Distributions

Tudor-Locke et al., Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise, 2004

How Many Steps are Enough?

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Mean steps/day

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Population groups

Legend

1=8-10 year olds

2=14-16 year olds

3= Healthy younger adults (approx. 20-50 years)

4= Healthy older adults (>50 years)

5= Individuals living with disabilities and chronic illnesses

Tudor-Locke, Research Digest, 2002

Sedentary lifestyle index

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Percent of sample

<5,268 5,268-9,356 >9,356

Steps/day

Pedometer and BMI category

BMI<25

BMI=25-29.9

BMI>29.9

Tudor-Locke et al., International Journal of Obesity, 2001

Modeling change

Baseline = 5000 steps/day 30 minute walk, 3 days/week

= 6200 steps/day (60 min/3 days =7500/steps/day)

30 minute walk, 5 days/week= 7100 steps/day (60min/5days = 9200 steps/day)

30 minute walk, 7 days/week= 8000 steps/day

(60 min/7days =11000 steps/day)

Is a Universal 10,000 Steps/day Sustainable?

Seems Reasonable for Healthy Adults

Assembled from published literature, healthy adults take between 7,000-13,000 steps/day (Tudor-Locke and Myers, 2001)

73% of participants who reported 30 minutes of moderate activity also achieved 10,000 steps (Welk et al., 2000)

Too High for Sedentary Individuals

Assembled from published literature: 3,500-5,500 steps/day for individuals living with disabilities and chronic illnesses (Tudor-Locke and Myers, 2001)

Proposed sedentary lifestyle index is <5,000 steps/day (Tudor-Locke et al., 2001)

Achieving 10,000 steps/day requires a 2-3 fold increase in daily activity

Remaining Concerns

Too Low for Children

8-10 year olds in the U.K. take 12,000-16,000 steps/day (Rowlands et al., 1999)

6-12 year olds in the U.S. take 11,000-13,000 steps/day (Vincent et al., 2002)

14-16 years olds in the U.S. take 11,000-12,000 steps/day (Wilde, 2002)

BMI-referenced cutpoints

International sample (USA, Sweden, Australia) 995 girls, 959 boys, 6-12 years

Criterion referenced analysis approach

12,000 steps/day for girls 15,000 steps/day for boys

Tudor-Locke et al., Preventive Medicine, 2004

What are We Left With?

Preliminary guidelines for adults

>12,500 steps/day highly active >10,000 steps/day active 7,500-9,999 steps/day somewhat active 5,000-7,499 steps/day low active <5,000 steps/day sedentary

Tudor-Locke & Bassett, Jr., Sports Medicine, 2004