Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Kids Can Benefit Health-Wise With Pedometers

By Henry Calhoun

Various studies show that adults who wear a pedometer increase the amount of daily activity, but it has also been shown that the same holds true for kids. A pedometer is useful to adults and kids, because it encourages and motivates to remain active.

Daily exercise is essential for a healthy body with 10,000 steps, which is about 5 miles, being the recommended distance to walk and when this information became common knowledge, adults from all walks began walking with their pedometers attached to their waist. The bonus is for those trying to lose extra pounds the walking boosted their results and those who were not did the walking for general health.

Many kids today are overweight or even obese. The reason for this is that children nowadays spend more of their time playing indoors, because of activities like video games, using the computer or watching TV. In the past children were not as heavy, because they also spent a lot more time playing outdoors and this inactivity of overweight kids today is also resulting in more and more overweight adults. The solution is simple and that is that kids simply need to be more active. However, accomplishing this is not as easy and that is where pedometers can be of help.

Pedometers have been helpful for adults to use so it is likely it can also accomplish the same for kids. Just as with adults, kids will be encouraged to walk as an activity, if they see results for their efforts and a pedometer will help meet your goal.

Getting kids to use a pedometer is not too difficult. Parents can simply make it a type of game. They can tell them what the pedometer does and how it works. They can then tell them that their goal is to reach a certain number of steps every day. If they reach their goal then they get a reward. This can work a lot like a potty training system where the parent charts their success and rewards them for it. Kids will think it is fun and they will work very hard to reach their daily goal.

Parents will enjoy giving their kids a pedometer, because it will help to encourage them to increase the amount of activity done on a daily basis while having fun and not having to push them to go outdoors. By using a pedometer, there will be less resistance from the kids and they will be happy to be more active. This is a win - win situation and the biggest reward of all is the fact that the kids will be healthier and lose some weight just because they have a pedometer. Being active is a way of life and one that will continue with kids as they grow up to be adults.

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