From IHUM to football games to a cappella auditions, Stanford’s new freshmen have a lot of places to go. Now, thanks to the Department of Athletics and the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Sports Medicine, students can carry a hip-mounted companion on their journeys across campus.

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Masaru Oka

Free pedometer hanging at her waistline, Cristina Gorrino ‘11 strides past the clock tower. All members of the freshman class received a pedometer this past week to track their daily number of steps as part of a campus-wide competition aimed at promoting active, healthy lifestyles.

This week, all freshmen were given a free pedometer as part of the ongoing Stanford Freshmen Fitness Challenge. Students are encouraged to use their new pedometers to log the number of steps they take each day. Students can keep track of activities other than walking too, as flyers with step conversion rates for physical activities including biking to class (2000 steps for every 20 minutes) and swimming (2000 steps for every 12 minutes) were also given out.

All dorms that have freshmen will use the pedometers until Oct. 6 as part of a campus-wide competition. The dorm with the highest step average per individual will receive free t-shirts and will be recognized at the Oct. 13 homecoming football game.

Jennifer Sexton, coordinator of Recreational Fitness and Wellness, said the Challenge aims to help freshmen explore campus, find out about wellness-related activities and discover positive stress-management practices.

“Be active and take care of yourself,” Sexton said, when asked the purpose of the Challenge.

Some students are concerned, though, that the message sent by the pedometer distribution may be misinterpreted by incoming freshmen. Residence staff members from Branner and Rinconada worry that the pedometers could promote overexercising, especially among students with body image issues.

The Branner Resident Assistants [RAs] were so concerned that they opted to pass out the pedometers to freshmen without encouraging them to log their steps.

“We weigh our responsibilities as RAs to make sure that everyone is living a healthy and balanced lifestyle,” explained Branner RA Alif Khalfan ‘08.

Sexton assured that body image concerns were taken into account in planning the Challenge. As a precaution against overexercising, freshmen can only record a maximum of 15,000 steps per day on their logs.

“We certainly did not want to feed into the mindset of overachievement,” Sexton said. “We just want people to create some good habits while they’re here.”

One staff member in a four-class dorm, who was granted anonymity for the protection of her residents, explained that the Challenge may not be a very accurate measure of dorm activity levels.

“They seemed excited at first,” she said, describing the students’ reactions to the pedometer distribution. “Then it took about 20 seconds to figure out that it counts steps if you shake it. Some of them sat through FACES and shook their pedometers for three hours.”

In Roble, according to Residential Writing Tutor [RWT] Ian Goodfellow ‘08, one freshman jokingly invited his peers to a pedometer “shaking party.”

Playing with the pedometers seems to be more about fun than cheating, Goodfellow said, as students self-report their results and are asked to sign an honor code statement on their log sheets.

An hour after receiving his new pedometer on Wednesday, Branner resident Clay Heins ‘11 eagerly put his to the test.

“I’m up to 1300 steps,” Heins said, having perfected a kind of bouncy walk that maximized the number of steps his pedometer was counting.

Asked if the pedometers would increase freshman activity levels, he re-checked his pedometer, then jumped in place a few times.

“I’ve increased my activity levels!” Heins said.