Like pet rocks and dollar stores, it turns out that “10,000 steps a day” is, at its core, a marketing gimmick. It had its origins in Japan, in 1965, with the Manpo waist pedometer, created to tackle rising obesity rates. The word “manpo” translates to “10,000 steps,” as the device’s inventor, following the work of Yoshiro Hatano, Ph.D., suggested that walking that many steps a day was key to maintaining health and the Japanese character for “10,000” somewhat resembles a person in motion. But research has shown that taking even far fewer daily steps can be beneficial. For example, in a landmark study by Dr. Lee and her colleagues, data from approximately 17,000 tracker-wearing U.S. women with a mean age of 72 found that those who took just 4,400 steps…