Employees stepping up to UK’s Fitbit program

Professor Melody Noland said she is happy with her average of 11,000 steps a day.

By Will Wright

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Back surgery may have forced education professor Melody Noland to quit running, but it could not stop her from finding other ways to exercise.

Marathons were out of the picture, but she could still lift weights, use the elliptical and, as evident by her daily average of 11,000 steps, walk.

The fewest steps Noland, 63, took in a single day since she got her Fitbit — which she bought on a big discount from UK’s LiveWell Step Up initiative — was 6,000 steps. Her max was more than 20,000, which she attributes to a round of golf and her 2-year-old pup, an energetic half-Italian Greyhound.

Noland is doing well compared to other UK employees participating in the challenge. She uses the Fitbit Surge, a pricier model that tracks her step count, the distance she walks and other exercise routines, like how much time she spends lifting weights. She wants to maintain her health, but also to be a good role model for her students. 

A walk from Whitehall Classroom Building to UK Chandler Hospital is only 11.6 minutes

“Tracking (steps) does encourage you do more,” Noland said, noting how successful the Fitbit program has been with more than 8,000 UK employees participating. “That shows you how many people are interested in their health.”

Geospacial technical administrator Lauren Weaver’s coworkers are no exception to this interest. Since they starting wearing Fitbits, her colleagues are more excited to take walks during breaks, and they even have “walking meetings.”

Moving out of the office can boost creativity and help people brainstorm. People can plan out their walking meetings by distance and the number of steps using UK’s mapping website.

Weaver said the success of the Fitbit program is tribute to UK Health and Wellness and how much the department can improve life on campus.

“Healthy people are happy people, and happy people are good employees,” Weaver said. “It’d be great to see this continue past the Fitbit initiative.”

Andrew Fast, a sophomore counselor at the Center for Academic Resources and Enrichment Services, said he find motivation from being competitive with his friends, and from the number of steps his 12-month-old will take in a day — a whopping 4,000 steps.

Almost everybody Fast knows who qualified for the program bought a Fitbit and has been tracking their daily averages.

“I think (wearing a Fitbit) definitely makes you conscious,” Fast said.

Fast finds himself wanting to get up and walk around the office more than he would without a Fitbit, especially, he said, when he looks down and sees that he has taken only 800 steps.