playing there on WNC. Don't feel bad if you aren't getting 10,000 steps a day.

For years now, research has called into question

the 10,000 a day step goal.

So an Atlantic staff writer Amanda Mull

wrote about this way back in 2019,

she began her article this way.

In America, the conventional wisdom of how to live healthily is full of axioms that long

ago shed their origins.

Drink eight glasses of water a day, get eight hours of sleep.

Take these boxes in your healthy person.

She wrote, the reality, of course, is a lot more nuanced.

She also wrote, human health is far too complicated to be reduced to a long chain of

numerical imperatives.

Now I'm going to admit that this segment came up kind of by accident because I was

weeding in, I like to read in on some of the latest health research and health news,

and I came upon Amanda's article and I didn't even realize at first that it was five years old

But I read through it and I thought you know this is still really relevant to talk about.

So where did this 10,000 steps number come from and why despite years of research indicating a more complicated picture?

Does the 10,000 daily step Goal remain a target for so many?

We will ask Amanda Mull, staff writer at the Atlantic, who joins me now.

Hey Amanda, welcome back to WNYC. Thank you so much for having me, Brian.

And for listeners, we can take a few phone calls.

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