title: More than 10 million steps in the right direction: results from the first American Heart Association scientific sessions walking challenge.
abstract: In 2013, the Global Congress theme at the American Heart Association (AHA) Annual Scientific Sessions was Physical Activity (PA). As a key component of the Congress, iHealth working in collaboration with AHA provided a Bluetooth-enabled wireless PA and sleep tracker to up to 2,000 Scientific Sessions attendees. Approximately 1850 Scientific Sessions attendees registered for, received a PA tracker and participated in the Walking Challenge. More than 10 million steps were walked by participants (10,703,504) during the 2.5 days of the Walking Challenge. This translates into almost 6000 miles walked (5976.3 miles) and 656,716 calories burned by participants during the Challenge. The Global Congress of PA held at Scientific Sessions 2013 not only extensively reviewed the science of PA as a powerful/independent and, most importantly, modifiable cardiovascular risk factor, but it also provided evidence from a fun and entertaining challenge that PA as a risk behavior can be assessed and targeted. We just took 10 million steps in the right direction. Join us and make your steps count!
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA. Electronic address: robert.harrington@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Robert A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Harrington
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Therapy and Integrative Physiology Laboratory, College of Applied Health Sciences, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL.
authors.forename: Ross
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Arena
authors.affiliation: Université Laval and Québec Heart and Lung Institute, Québec City, Canada.
authors.forename: Jean-Pierre
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Després
authors.affiliation: American Heart Association, Dallas, TX.
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ciarochi
authors.affiliation: American Heart Association, Dallas, TX.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Croll
authors.affiliation: Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: Kenneth D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Bloch
mesh_terms: D000572:American Heart Association; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology; D003226:Congresses as Topic; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D015444:Exercise; D015438:Health Behavior; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D009043:Motor Activity; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000379:methods; D014481:United States; D016138:Walking
keywords: American Heart Association; Physical activity; Walking Challenge