Want to lose weight and inches? Take 10,000 steps per day. Several towns and cities in America have 10,000 step campaigns to fight the obesity epidemic.

They give pedometers- devices that measure walking to strides- to people who try to achieve 10,000 strides per day.

University of Tennessee researchers found that the number of steps middle-age women took every day was highly predictive of their weight and body composition.

Women who took more than 10,000 steps per day were less likely to be overweight, carried less fat (26 percent) and had smaller waist and hip measurements than women who walked 6,000-9,999 steps or fewer than 6,000 steps. Inactive women were either highly overweight or obese and averaged 44 percent fat. Thai study shows how easy it can be to lose weight and body fat- buy a pedometer and walk 10,000 steps every day.