Getting Kids Moving With a Pedometer

Over the last couple of weeks, our nine year old son’s PE class has been learning about the importance of everyday activity in leading a healthy lifestyle. Apparently they’ve also talked about the idea of walking at least 10,000 steps per day as a worthy benchmark. Thus, he was ecstatic when he found an old pedometer laying around the house.

Unfortunately, the old pedometer didn’t work very well, and only counted about one out of every ten steps. Since he was so into the idea of tracking his steps, though, my wife picked up a new cheapo pedometer at Wal-Mart for about three bucks (it’s very similar to this one, and it’s pretty accurate). Truth be told, she actually picked up four of them because the little brothers refuse to be left out of just about anything. But I digress…

As it turns out, the first full day he had the new pedometer, our nine year old logged over 26,000 steps! While we were waiting for the bus, he was running up and down the driveway trying to increase his step count. He then spent his entire recess running around on the playground improving his stats. And when he got home he was in constant motion.

Of course, as the novelty wears off, he’s bound to slow down a bit. But each day since he got the pedometer, he’s logged his steps on a chart on the refrigerator, and he’s been well over 10k every single day (in fact, he has yet to finish a day below 15k). So if you’re looking to get your kids moving, consider picking up a pedometer and turning it into a game.