Elementary students plan to walk across country to stay healthy

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Story Published: Oct 30, 2009 at 5:12 PM MDT

Story Updated: Oct 30, 2009 at 7:22 PM MDT

By Wes Horrocks

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BLACKFOOT - Most of us walk a few miles every day without even knowing it.

Students at Ridge Crest Elementary are going to start keeping track to see if they can walk across the country.

At a special assembly students at Ridge Crest received the challenge to walk several thousand miles. Emma, a fifth grader explained, "So we can be healthy."

They will be walking across America.

Every day at recess they can keep track of how far they walk.

Each lap of the track is a quarter of a mile, and the total distance will be posted on a bulletin board. Fifth grader Luke said, "We get the toe tokens, and its kind of fun to know we walked across America."

As motivation the kids were taught that they've already walked more than 1.1 million miles in their lives.

So what's one more trip around the country? "If we have already done it over 1,000 times in our life it's going to be easy," said Emma.

The program is sponsored by Bingham Memorial Hospital.

Pediatricians are excited to see kids so willing to stay active.

The hope is that this program will remind kids that they should exercise not only at school, but also at home so they can stay healthy. Dr. Maurice Gaytan, Pediatrician at Bingham Memorial Hospital said, "Many parents allow their children to watch excess amounts of TV, and that in general is not good."

Meaning kids should be on their bike, running, or walking as much as possible. "No limits," said Gaytan.

It may only be the first day, but kids are already setting goals for how much they'll contribute to the cross-country trek. "I'm thinking about 50 miles," said Luke.

It has taken four years to create this program, and is only being launched now because of help from the hospital.

School administrators also encourage teachers to be out walking, and plan to continue this program in coming years.

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