FOR the fit and fashionable, the pedometer is the must-have accessory this summer. The little gizmo clips on to your belt and registers the jolt you make with each fall of the foot.
Their popularity has soared with the recommendation from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and other health bodies that if you walk 10,000 steps a day, you’ll burn enough calories to lose weight and keep a decent level of fitness. They’re now so popular that manufacturers in the Far East can’t keep up with demand.
McDonald’s reported this week that a pedometer promotion has been so successful that it has had to reorder more, having given away 700,000 in ten days.
Just having a pedometer actually makes you more active, according to the BHF’s “Walking the Way to Health” initiative. “We have carried out several evaluations of pedometers all showing that people take up to 2,000 steps a day more if they are conscious of the number of steps they do,” says the initiative’s Peter Ashcroft.
But be warned: using pedometers can be addictive. If you want to take steps to fitness without the gizmo, the chart, right, shows how you can gauge 10,000 steps in daily routines.