Healthy Lives: Clever Kids & Their Dogs

This would be terrible, if it wasn't so amusing. Children in an east London borough tricked researchers when they took the pedometers they'd been assigned to measure their activity levels, and put them on their dogs.

About 200 children in east London were given pedometers to automatically count how many steps they walked and ran.

Mile End Centre for Sports and Exercise Medicine was surprised by the activity levels recorded in some obese children.

Professor Nicola Maffulli said: "Then we realised they were attaching the pedometers to their dogs' collars." 

Researchers found that boys and girls took an average of 12,620 and 10,150 steps a day, respectively. This is below the 15,000 steps recommended for boys, and 12,000 for girls. Since this particular borough has an especially high childhood obesity rate, researchers are planning more studies  probably with a sharp eye out for four-footed friends next time.

While it's not unusual for participants to manipulate pedometer readings during a study, it would have been nice if the pedometers could have motivated these 11 and 12-year-olds to run with their dogs, rather than motivating them to find a clever way out.

As it stands now though, we're left wondering: Exactly how many steps do our four-legged family members take in a day?

I'm guessing a lot.

Photo source: Pet Shed