Daman engages 4,000 students in '1.5 Million Steps' competition

This educational initiative, kicking off in the middle of March, will see 4,000 students from 40 Abu Dhabi schools take part over a period of two days.

40 schools across the Emirate of Abu Dhabi have confirmed their participation to help raise awareness on the importance of walking and the dangers of child obesity and its connection to subsequent diseases. A total of 4,000 students will be taking part in this Emirate-wide competition.

Studies have shown that 26% of children aged 5-17 years suffer from obesity, many of which attribute this drastic rise to the comfortable urban lifestyle adopted by most UAE residents, which generally lacks in physical activity and healthy diets. Experts agree that child obesity has largely contributed to the national diabetes epidemic, with the UAE now holding the second highest rate of diabetes in the world.

Dr. Michael Bitzer, Daman's Chief Executive stated that, "Obesity rates are dramatically increasing in the UAE, and it is becoming increasingly clear that we need more initiatives to embed exercise as a hobby and healthy habit in the minds of our youth. It is crucial that we promote healthy living while they are young before bad habits become harder to deal with later on in their lives, and this is what we hope to achieve by launching this competition."

Experts recommend that an average person walks 10,000 steps a day, as walking exercises muscles, facilitates blood circulation and helps maintain fitness. It also helps prevent various diseases such as diabetes, hyper tension and heart diseases.

The aim of the '1.5 Million Steps' initiative is for each student to exceed the recommended 10,000 steps in order for each school to collectively walk 1.5 million steps over two days. Daman will distribute 4,000 pedometers to students aged 11-16 years from 40 different schools in the Emirate where participating students will be asked to wear pedometers for two days to register the number of steps they take per day.

Daman will later award the three schools that most exceed the 1.5 million steps mark. From each of the three winning schools, the student who walks the most will also be awarded along with the sports coaches.

Dr. Bitzer added, "We have received very positive response from the participating schools, parents and students. With the continued support of the Abu Dhabi Education Zone Department, we hope to turn this competition into an annual event and continue to spread conscious healthy habits."

Daman held a briefing session earlier last week to explain the mechanics of the competition to the schools' physical education instructors and inform them of the motive behind the competition: to combat the rates of child obesity in the short-run, and the rates of diabetes and heart conditions in the long-run.

Through this initiative, Daman hopes to promote exercise and health awareness among children to teach them that walking can indeed reduce the risk of life threatening diseases.