Healthy Kids Move

It’s yet another responsibility a parent has~ making sure his/her children get exercise. It isn’t always easy in the winter when even I take one look outside and dive for the nearest blanket. During the summer months it is completely normal for my two sons to play all day, to go from a park to a pool to another park and September always leaves me cringing at the thought of those two active boys suddenly having to sit for 6.5 hours a day with just short little recesses to get outside. Then as slowly as the leaves turn colors the sedentary lifestyle seeps into their growing bones and it becomes the norm, making movement a strange and rare occurrence that results in having to ‘rest’. I hate it. And just for the record I also hate the hours of homework after school when kids should be running around, or pursuing other passions like music, art, karate, etc. Anyway, I found a tool that helps motivate the kids to move and I like it so much I just have to share. There might be other brands out there, but what I found at our local REI was a kid friendly pedometer made by geopalz. The pedometers come in all different kinds of cute designs and can be worn on shoes or hips or even held in hand, though that is not really recommended. (Your arm movements are much more erratic compared to legs/feet.) The kids get to login into their personal statistics on the geopalz website and enter in their daily steps to watch their numbers add up and earn points for the ‘arcade’ and also points to earn real things, such as frisbees or balls. Such a fantastic idea! Both the website and the pedometer seem to be fairly new and have a kink or two that still need working out, but the fact my youngest and most lay-around-the-house son said, “I’m going to wear this all the time and get more steps!” is enough to make the purchase worth it. They have really enjoyed them so far and I have enjoyed being able to say, “Let’s walk to (wherever) and you can rack up some steps” and hearing “Yay!” instead of “No way!” Great idea and seems to be a great company.