Americans are counting their steps toward fitness

(Houston Chronicle) - Pedometers, electronic gadgets you clip on your belt to count the steps you walk, are the latest craze in the nation's capital.

Cabinet secretaries, members of Congress, foreign dignitaries, Capitol Hill police, government staffers and journalists tote this new fashion accessory to measure their daily exercise progress or their competition with office colleagues.

Tommy Thompson, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, a pedometer pioneer here, gives the gizmos to office visitors, including foreign health ministers, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was recently spotted running across an airport tarmac in Iraq with one affixed to his belt.

Thompson said he started charting his peripatetic progress three years ago after an employee at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave him a pedometer.

"I looked at that thing and became addicted to it," Thompson said. He proudly attests that his daily goal of walking 10,000 steps — a number he encourages others to attain — has helped him drop 15 pounds. Next in his campaign to encourage staffers to exercise: Paint the stairwells in the HHS building and pipe in music to make the stairs more inviting.

On Capitol Hill, where lawmakers march down long hallways in marble office buildings as they race to cast votes and attend hearings, about 30 House members are part of the bipartisan pedometer rage.

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According to America on the Move:

•One mile is equivalent to 2,000 to 2,500 steps.
•10,000 steps is equivalent to four to five miles.
•Nine holes of golf without a cart requires 8,000 steps.
•One city block is about 200 steps.
•A 90-minute soccer game requires 8,000 to 10,000 steps.
•The average person walks about 1,200 steps in 10 minutes.
•The average number of steps per day for females, age 30 to 39, is 5,819.
•The average number of steps per day for males, age 30 to 39, is 5,162.