Kingston, NY - The Healthy Steps to Albany: School’s Challenge for 2010 had a very successful inaugural year in Ulster County. Over 1,800 middle school students took part in this activity-based contest, and together logged over 100 million steps! Participating schools included Bailey and Miller Middle Schools in Kingston, New Paltz Middle School in New Paltz, and BOCES in both Port Ewen and Highland.
"Because healthy habits formed early are often maintained for life, I am delighted that so many Ulster County students eagerly joined in this activity-oriented competition. Today, I congratulate the Bailey Middle School class which took more "Healthy Steps" than any other Bailey Middle School class. These students put forth a tremendous effort and should be very proud of their accomplishment," said County Executive Hein. "Teaching our young people the importance of maintaining an active lifestyle moves Ulster County closer to achieving my goal of having the healthiest county in New York State."
Dr. Karnasiewicz said, "We are proud to have brought the Healthy Steps Challenge to Ulster County, and I look forward to even more students participating next year. We would like to extend our thanks to all of our generous sponsors and to the students for a successful endeavor. Every student who participated in the program is a winner. It is our hope that the benefits of the Healthy Steps program last for all students for many years to come."
How the Healthy Steps Challenge works: each class is a team, and each activity a student completes, whether it is walking, running, or playing a sport, has a certain number of "steps" associated with it. In order to account fairly for the different class sizes of those participating, all classes’ steps are totaled for the challenge and then divided by the number of students in the class, creating an average per student. The class with the highest average number of steps per student is the winning class.
At Bailey Middle School, Coach Eaton’s BDF 7th Grade, 8th period gym class – with an amazing average of 219,448 steps per student – won this year’s challenge.
