Walk your way to good health

Denver, July 15: When the choir rises, Lucille Johnson`s heart burns with faith and she feels herself pulled down the path of righteousness as fast as her sneakers will carry her.
"Order my steps in your word, dear Lord," their voices surge, repeating one of contemporary gospel`s popular hymns. "Guide my feet in your word. Show me how to walk in your word."

Johnson smiles down at the tiny US$ 20 plastic monitor clipped to her skirt. "31,995," the pedometer reads, documenting the number of steps she`s taken in a week. Nearly 21 kilometres.

Johnson, 48, is one of 150,000 people in Colorado in a program determining whether modest physical effort will prevent weight gain, now recognised as America`s second-leading cause of preventable death behind smoking.

On Thursday, the pedometer program expands nationally. Its founders hope to have one million people signed up for America on the Move.

They will begin walking at least 2,000 additional steps a day, about a mile, to burn 100 calories. And they`ll trim another 100 calories a day from their diets.

Johnson, who directs health programs for the Metro Denver Black Church Initiative, started wearing a pedometer more than a year ago. She not only stopped gaining weight, but when she increased her daily walking to about 10,000 steps, she lost more than a dozen pounds and cut back her hypertension medicine.

Now she considers the paths of health and redemption to be intertwined. "It`s the same as the gospel," she says. "God doesn`t care where you are when you start. You will reap the reward." Bureau Report