FSPA reports ‘Step To It’ challenge success

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FSPA reports ‘Step To It’ challenge success

By: Jeff James

Listed Under: News

Published: Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The Federation of Sports and Play Associations says it’s delighted with the success of its ‘Step To It’ challenge, which saw more than 41.6 million steps walked by 388 employees from 30 member companies over the six-week campaign duration.

The challenge was launched as a result of the FSPA signing the government's ‘Change4Life’ Responsibility Deal pledge to encourage increased physical activity in the workplace, as the national federation firmly believes that although public health is everyone’s responsibility, the sport and play industries have a key role to play in reducing the obesity epidemic.

During the campaign, which began on March 27, participants recorded a total of 41,653,618 steps, approximately 20,827 miles and equivalent to walking more than three quarters around the world at the Equator.

The overall aim of the Step To It challenge was for participants to increase their daily step total by 500 each week, thus over the six-week period participants were aiming to improve their average daily step total by 3,000 steps.

Only seven per cent of those who took up the challenge managed to achieve the 500-per-week increase, with 34 per cent beating their initial baseline total each week.

The FSPA made the challenge available to its total membership base comprising 600 member companies across 18 trade associations, offering free challenge packs that included pedometers, scoreboards and leaderboards.

All individual and company step totals were recorded online with a Twitter campaign and regular updates and weekly leader board scores.

The campaign received positive feedback, with Jim Robert of ATA member Daiwa Sports stating: “On behalf of Daiwa Sports, I would like to thank the FSPA for this fun challenge, which has been really well received by our employees who have expressed their hope that this can become an annual event.”

Highlighting the benefit of wearing a pedometer as a catalyst for increasing your daily activity when at work, Lianne Kelly of Jupiter Play added: “It has been an eye opener for us all how much your step totals can change daily.”

The results identify the relatively sedentary working life the majority of us have and highlight the need to keep on the move while at work.

Based on the success of this challenge and the excellent member feedback, the FSPA will look at holding future challenges going forward.

The FSPA would like to thank all participating members for their time and effort taking part in this challenge.

Weekly winners can be seen at http://www.sportsandplay.com/steptoit/scoreboard and full results found by visiting http://www.sportsandplay.com/steptoit/overview.