Preventive one million steps : Walk for health.

Abstract

Background : Employees are important forces in driving the organization. Their proper physical and mental health is thus imperative for effectively pushing the organization toward success.

Objective : To enhance health promoting behavior by using easily accommodated activity into individuals’ daily and working life.

Setting : Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Chulalongkorn University

Research Design : A single group with pre- and post-test design pilot study.

Material and Methods : Participants are employees of the Department. The intervention was an activity to promote individual’s walks of one-million steps within one hundred days (or ten thousand steps per day on average) by using a pedometer as the motivating and monitoring instrument. Biophysical parameters including weight, height and body mass Index (BMI) were measured at the beginning and the end of 100-day intervention period. Effectiveness of the intervention program was then evaluated by determining change in the body weight.

Results : Among 24 participants, 13 (54.2%) were faculty members while the others (45.8%) were supporting personnel. Ten (41.6%) had BMI >23 kg/m2. At the end of the intervention, 5(38.5%) faculty members achieved one-million steps goal, 8 (61.5%) lost body weight with the magnitude of 0.1 to 9.7 kilograms. Concerning supporting personnel, 9(81.8%) achieved one-million steps goal, 7 (63.6%) lost body weight with the magnitude of 0.4 to 4.1 kilograms.

Conclusions : Promoting walking toward 10 thousand steps per day is a feasible and is likely to be an effective health promoting program for employees in an organization.