Purpose: To engage staff in increasing physical activity throughout the month of October, 2016. National studies indicate that only “about 1 in 5 (21%) adults meet the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines”. According to the CDC, “adults need at least 2.5 hours a week of physical activity” to remain healthy (source).
Scope: Staff were invited to create teams of three (some created teams of four; these did not factor significantly into the winners of the challenge), and log their daily activity in terms of minutes rather than steps, miles, or any other measurement. This idea was borne out of requests following last year’s challenge for an alternate to tracking steps or miles since there is no way to do that with swimmers, horse riders, etc. Team captains were provided with excel spreadsheets to track time, and were asked to send results weekly to me via email. Results were collected and posted to a larger excel document that allowed for real-time ranking of teams and individuals throughout the challenge. One of the spreadsheets collected data by day of week, allowing analysis of which days saw more activity during the week, and which week was busiest during the month.
Results: Eighty seven individuals registered in twenty eight teams of three and four.
The top three teams and their total hours are as follows:
1. The Beat Goes On 8515 minutes
2. The Three T’s 7404 minutes
3. Fancy Feet 7241 minutes
The top three individuals and their total hours are as follows:
1. Sandy Lamphere 4620 minutes
2. Peg Sullivan 4205 minutes
3. Dee Thomas 3657 minutes
Day of the week with most activity was Saturday. The day with the least activity was Thursday.
The second week has the most overall activity (31,445 minutes), with the fourth week saw the least, with 23,577 minutes.
Total minutes of activity reported from 1 OCT–31OCT: 121,661 which equates to 2028 hours.
Total number of individuals participating in challenge: 81 (Eighty seven signed up, six did not report any minutes).
Total number of teams participating in challenge:
26 (Twenty eight teams signed up, two teams did not report any minutes).
Average number of minutes of activity per active participant:
121,661 / 81 = 1502
Average number of minutes of activity per active participant per week:
1502 / 4.42 = 340
The final week of the month had three days which are accounted for by the “.42” in the above
calculation.
With the weekly goal per person being established at 150 minutes, our active participants have exceeded double the recommended level during the challenge.
Thank you to everyone who participated. I know that it wasn't ideal for everyone, but overall I believe that most people had some fun, got some exercise, and were able to see where they're at in regards to activity levels. I look forward to the next one, and am open to suggestions! Please drop me an email at eugene.soboleski@va.gov!!
