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.

Everyone knows that exercise is important in order to keep the body healthy. It is recommended to walk about five miles each day and that is equivalent to 10,000 steps. After this recommendation became widespread, it was not an uncommon sight to see adults wearing pedometers and keeping track of how many steps they took each day. This resulted in better health for the adults, as well as supported the weight loss programs of those trying to get rid of the extra pounds.

Today a fact is that kids are not playing outside as they did in the past and as a consequence many of today's kids are classified as obese or overweight. A major culprit for their inactivity and spending so much time indoors is watching TV, playing video games or being on the computer. This is unhealthy as they are gaining weight fast and a result of that is they end up being overweight adults. To counteract this trend there needs to be more activity in their lives and the pedometer can help.

Since pedometers have worked so well for adults, it was believed that they could do the same for kids. Human beings are all the same, no matter their age, when it comes to wanting to feel accomplished for their actions. When it comes to being active, a pedometer is a way to see that you are accomplishing something. You get an instant read out showing just how many steps you have taken and when giving a goal of steps to reach, you are more likely to try to reach that 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. - 29951

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