Pedometers

Pedometer ($12 to $55) and speed-and-location monitor ($100 to $200). Pedometers, which track steps taken, distance covered, and calories burned, may help motivate you to be more active. In our October 2004 report on Pedometers (available to subscribers), we rated the FreeStyle Tracer as a Best Buy for most exercise walkers. Runners, hikers, or serious exercise walkers may want to spend more for devices that also monitor their speed and, in models that include a global-positioning-system device, their location.

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aking action to address the nation’s obesity and related health issues, the Principal Financial Group has launched a new program in cooperation with Weight Watchers of North America, Inc. This program provides the more than 1.6 million health care customers of The Principal access to discounts on Weight Watchers’ services, whether the customer participates in a Weight Watchers’ program during a local meeting, online or at home. Savings vary by program, but can include free registration and discounts on enrollment and meeting fees of up to ten percent.

“Our foremost concern is the health and wellness of our customers. Even a few extra pounds can have a significant impact on a person’s cholesterol, blood pressure and increase their risk for diabetes and heart conditions,” said Carey Jury, senior vice president of the Health Division for the Principal Financial Group. “By providing them added incentives to lose weight in a balanced, nutritious and sensible way, we are encouraging our customers to head off any potential problems now, before serious conditions develop.”

As one of the nation’s most trusted names in weight loss, Weight Watchers offers several options for customers of The Principal interested in participating in a program, including:

– Local meetings - Meeting coupons provide prepaid admission to local Weight Watchers meetings, with savings on weekly fees and free registration.

– Online - Weight Watchers online provides a set of robust, personalized tools to help participants stay on track.

– At home - The Weight Watchers At Home Kit is a convenient weight-loss system that contains 12 weeks of program materials with simple step-by-step instructions delivered to the participant’s home. A deluxe package is also available, which includes twenty-six weeks of telephone support, a pedometer, a cookbook and the popular Weight Watchers’ books Complete Food and Dining Out Companion.

“The best defense is a strong offense when it comes to warding off serious health conditions and risks. We’re encouraging our customers to take action before weight-related problems arise, which can lead to - among other things - sizable healthcare bills,” noted Jury.

For more information about the Weight Watchers program discounts available to health customers of the Principal Financial Group, visit www.principal.com/health.

Mayor H. Ross “Sparky” Anderson has confided to close associates that he is staking his legacy on reducing the body fat of the citizens of Salt Lake City. “I walk around town, and all I see are lard-asses stuffing their faces with ice cream, doughnuts, cookies, s’mores, cheeseburgers and french fries. If I’m going to be remembered for one thing, I want people to think of me as the man who decreased the average percent of body fat in this gluttonous burg to less than 12 percent.”

In private conversations with his decreasing circle of trusted associates, Sparky has admitted that his other initiatives—a revitalized downtown, speakeasies on every corner, ping-pong tournaments on Library Square—have been resounding failures. He has long since given up trying to usurp the theocracy that rules the community. Longtime personal assistant and soul mate Deeda Seed thinks Sparky lost his spark after being irremediably traumatized by the dangling incident when, during discussions about church dominion over Main Street, Presiding Bishop H. David Burton covered Sparky’s head with a white blanket and dangled him from a window on the 13th floor of the Joseph Smith Building.

Pedometers are now the latest thing as people all around town are being swept up in Sparky’s new Walk Your Way to Reduced Body Fat campaign. Just last week Sparky announced a 13-week walking contest to encourage Salt Lakers to get off their well-cushioned keisters and burn up some body fat. Citizens are urged to form five-person teams and shoot for 10,000 steps (depending on length of stride, anywhere from one to 10 miles) a day for each member.

According to Dr. Harlow McGuire, Sparky’s personal trainer and co-coordinator of the walking contest, teams will get extra points for adopting Sparky’s walking style, which involves a cross-over back-step skip-and-twirl maneuver. “And if they do this without pants while singing ‘Walk Away Rene,’ they get triple points.”

McGuire announced that the first 400 teams to sign up would receive a free fitness package consisting of a pedometer, T-shirts, night-walking light, and a year’s supply of Odor-Eater insoles. “We’ve had complaints from library patrons that walkers come into the building after walking 10,000 or 20,000 steps and air out their feet on top of the tables. It really stinks the place up. So the Odor-Eaters are a must. Also, we ask walkers without pants not to sit down on the sofas.”

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The hallways of Cheboygan Area Middle School are always busy with activity, but after this week students will find out if their movements around the building qualify them for prizes in a national competition.

Channel One News and The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are sponsoring a week-long physical fitness contest at the school to get kids moving.

Students are wearing a “move meter,” or pedometer, that is clipped to their waistbands to measure steps for a week. The goal is 10,000 steps per day.

This program is part of a nationwide initiative that will reach 90,000 students in grades six through eight from 120 schools involved from October through March. Each week, 20 different schools compete nationwide. This week, four of the schools currently participating are from Michigan. In addition to Cheboygan, other middle schools have entered this week from Pontiac, North Branch and Big Bay.

“The activity level of students is down and you can see it,” said Adam Bury, a physical education teacher at the school. “Students are getting larger with more time in front of computers and video games. This program just happened to fit right in with what the school was already trying to do.”

Bury applied to participate in the program while researching ways to buy pedometers for his students to try and increase their activity throughout the day. Their activity goal is at least 60 minutes of play per day.

The school where students record the most steps by Friday will receive athletic equipment valued at $1,500 from Channel One News. The students in the highest-achieving class at Cheboygan Area Middle School will each receive a $10 gift certificate from a local sporting goods store.

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For the third consecutive year the Moon Walk program will enlist Tri-County participants in collectively walking the distance to the moon and back - 477,400 miles.

People can join the program at any time. Registration is available during work hours at: Methodist Wellness Center, Methodist Atrium, lower level, 900 Main St., Peoria, 672-4963. Dragon’s Dome, 3401 Griffin Ave., Pekin, 346-4123, ext. 222

Cost: Per person to participate, $5, includes a Moon Walk 2005 Log Booklet and coupons. Participants can buy a Moon Walk pedometer and a 106-page book and walking log “Pedometer Walking” for an additional $20.

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A competition combining healthy exercise and taking in the major cultural attractions of Leeds has been hailed a success by the culture tsar for Leeds.

Run in partnership with Leeds City Council’s ‘Smarten Up’ campaign, which aims to encourage people of all ages to increase their level of exercise, online guide to arts and cultural events digyorkshire.com launched a competition offering readers the chance to win pedometers to measure how far they walk.

The competition has received almost 1,000 entries in less than three months from people keen to view the finest arts and culture Leeds has to offer at the same time as walking to get fit.

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Richard Simmons has been fighting Americans’ obesity for more than 30 years, through a series of “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” videos, walking tapes and a series of “Cruise to Lose” healthful shipboard vacations.

One of his latest missions is to make exercise more accessible to people, even if their pockets are tight. On Sunday, the first 1,000 adults attending a fair will receive a free pedometer and walking instructions sheet. Read more »