Can a pedometer be the new cool tool?  Maybe, if you can help people get enthusiastic about using one.  Pedometers come in all price ranges from free (lots of companies give away freebies … maybe your organization can give them out at health fairs, for instance) all the way up to $100 or more — and those devices have lots of extra gadgetry to add to the motivation.  But getting pedometers to the people who need them is only the first step … now they have to get moving to the tune of taking 10,000 or more steps each day, which is the goal.  That’s lots more walking than you might guess — and in fact, is more walking than most people do in several days!  This blog offers some creative ideas for how to use a pedometer to get more mileage into your day – literally.

An easy-to-execute and inexpensive way you can encourage people in your community to “step up” their activity level is to offer an online tracking program at your hospital site – or even just a simple, down-loadable graph they can keep for themselves.  Here’s one you can adapt.

Continue Reading