For years, doctors have recommended 30 minutes of exercise daily, yet only about 5% of adults actually reach that goal. For American Heart Month, the local American Pharmacist Association (APhA) chapter created a new challenge to help get students on our campus up and moving.
During the month of February, participants are required to monitor how many steps they achieve every day. Once a week, they upload a picture of their weekly step total to the competition form. At the end of the month, participants will be evaluated and awarded various prizes for achievements such as Most Steps and Special Challenges. APhA member, Chelsea Travis, hoped to have at least 50 people participate in the challenge and was delighted to shoot past that goal. There are officially 93 participants with 25% faculty or staff participating.
On February 6th, Zoe Schilling, the campus Zumba instructor hosted a special “Red Zumba” event to give participants a chance to pump up their numbers. At this event, APhA held a raffle to entice the participants to attend. Schilling is also participating in the event and hopes to crack 100,000 steps every week. “I run five miles, three days a week,” she said, “and on those days, I average more than 20,000 steps.” For the less enthusiastic, a goal of 10,000 a day/70,000 a week is a healthy goal.
Only time will tell what this competition brings, but Travis hopes that all participants “have fun competing against each other” and that they will “gain the confidence to keep going in their health journeys after the competition ends.”