Now that's what you call a toddle! Three-year-olds take as many as 30,000 steps a day, study finds

Published: 05:04 EDT, 30 September 2026 | Updated: 05:04 EDT, 30 September 2026 They're only small, but it turns out toddlers are putting a lot of steps in. A new study has found that children as young as three take up to 30,000 steps a day. In the study, researchers from the University of Seville counted the number of steps taken by thousands of three– and four–year–olds. The results revealed that, on average, the children took 18,542 steps a day.However, some energetic youngsters clocked up a whopping 29,320 steps.'Establishing internationally comparable reference values for daily steps provides an important benchmark for monitoring physical activity in early childhood,' the researchers said in their study, published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. In the study, researchers from the University of Seville counted the number of steps taken by thousands of three– and four–year–olds. The results revealed that, on average, the children took 18,542 steps a day. However, some energetic youngsters clocked up a whopping 29,320 steps They're only small, but it turns out toddlers are putting a lot of steps in (stock image)While step count is an early indicator of physical activity in children, there has been little research into it until now. 'Early childhood is a critical period for growth and development, and low activity in this period has been linked to excess weight gain and delayed motor development,' the researchers explained.'There are very few objective ways to track physical activity in young children and identify children at risk of low activity. 'Step counts represent a simple and widely accessible proxy measure of physical activity.'To understand just how many steps young children take, the researchers enlisted 3,570 children from 44 countries between 2018 and 2025.The children were given a step counter to wear on their hip for 24 hours per day, over a minimum of three days. The results revealed that step counts varied widely. Among three-year-olds, daily steps ranged from 1,124 for the least active children to 29,320 for the most active. Children in low-income and middle-income countries, and those living in rural areas, recorded higher average daily step counts than children in high-income and urban areasHowever, boys consistently recorded more daily steps than girls. On average three-year-old boys took 18,064 steps per day, compared to 16,426 steps for girls of the same age. Beyond gender, the researchers also identified several other factors that appear to affect step count. Children in low-income and middle-income countries, and those living in rural areas, recorded higher average daily step counts than children in high-income and urban areas. Based on the findings, the researchers suggest that these reference values could be used in a similar way to paediatric growth charts, allowing doctors to chart an individual child's activity compared against an international benchmark. They added: 'Step counts could provide a practical and scalable approach for global movement behaviour surveillance, particularly in low-resource settings.'