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How Many Steps Should You Walk to Live

Longer?
6 Intermediate Health

Exercise 1
Warm-up

Have a short conversation based on the questions below.

1. If you had to guess, how many steps would you say you walk a day?

2. What are the nicest places to go for a walk where you live?

Exercise 2
Vocabulary

Repeat each word, definition, and example sentence after your tutor.

magic number /ˌmædʒɪk ˈnʌmbər/

Noun an important number that has to be reached for something to happen

There's no evidence that drinking eight glasses of water is a

magic number for staying hydrated.

pedometer /pɪˈdɑːmɪtər/
Noun
 a device used to measure how many steps a person takes or how far
they walk

According to my pedometer, I have already walked 10,000 steps

today.

make up /meɪk ʌp/ to invent a story, explanation or excuse

Phrasal Verb
It turns out she made up the story about the robbery and
actually lost all of her money gambling.

exact /ɪgˈzækt/ precise or accurate

Adjective
The exact IQ of Albert Einstein is not known.

risk /rɪsk/ the possibility of something bad happening

Noun
A poor diet is correlated with a higher risk of heart disease.

Exercise 3
Article

Read the article aloud on your own or repeat each paragraph after your tutor.

How Many Steps Should You Walk to Live Longer?

How many steps should you walk each day to stay healthy and live longer?

Many people say the magic number is 10,000 steps. However, a study published in The
Lancet Public Health has found that fewer steps can be just as good, especially if
you're 60 or over.

The idea for 10,000 steps seems to have come from a Japanese company selling
pedometers back in 1965. The company called its pedometer the "Manpo Meter,"
which translates to the "10,000-step meter." However, it's believed this number was
made up — and it has stayed with us ever since.

So, to find out the exact number of steps adults should actually be walking,
researchers looked at 15 studies to compare health data from nearly 48,000 people
from Asia, Australia, Europe and North America.

The researchers found that the results were different for older and younger adults.

While the risk of early death generally decreased as people walked more, for people 60
and over, the risk stopped decreasing after about 6,000 to 8,000 steps per day. For
adults between 18 and 59, the risk stopped decreasing after about 8,000 to 10,000
steps.

The researchers also grouped the participants according to their step count. The
lowest group walked about 3,500 steps per day, and the highest group about 10,900
steps per day.

Adults in the group doing the most steps had a 40% to 53% lower risk of early death
than people in the bottom group, the researchers found.

The researchers said that knowing the best number of steps for different age groups
could help improve public health advice.

Exercise 4
Discussion

Have a discussion based on the following questions.

1. What are your thoughts on the findings of this study?

2. Is your town or city easy to get around on foot?

3. Would you like to exercise more than you currently do?

4. Do you use any health or fitness trackers?

5. Are there any sports or forms of exercise you'd like to get into?

6. Who are the fittest people you know? Have they always been active?

7. Who's the oldest person you know? Do they keep an active lifestyle?
 8. Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time. — Steven Wright. What's the
longest distance you ever walked?

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