This answer is not so clear-cut. Generally speaking, running does burn more calories than walking. But...not always. Efficiency of movement will help us understand why.
Walking is a more efficient way of moving and involves fewer muscles than running. This efficiency means less calories burned. With running, as your lead foot comes down, it is absorbing more than your body weight due to the effects of gravity. This force on the leg muscles varies depending upon how fast you are running. When you run faster your stride becomes longer. A longer stride equals more force with each stride. A lot more calories are required to absorb these higher impact forces and to propel you forward with the next stride.
However, the number of calories burned during walking and running is not a static number. It is a dynamic measure that will increase as your speed and effort level increases. At a speed where walking becomes challenging, less efficient, and has a higher effort level, more calories and burned then a jog at the same speed. This "cross over" speed, where walking becomes very strenuous, occurs somewhere at around 4 to 5 miles per hour for most people. Jogging at speeds slower than your cross over will feel easier and burn fewer calories than walking. Walking at speeds faster than your cross over will feel harder and burn more calories than running.
If this is confusing, let me simplify it. Walking has the advantage of being easy to do and virtually injury free. Running can burn more calories but is harder on the joints.
So you need to determine what's best for you. For most of us, a mix and match approach is probably the best. Or, you may find that the small amount of extra calories burned while running are not worth the impact on your joints. The choice is yours.
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