Duke Employees Lost 1,600 Pounds in Three Weeks

With about a third of the Get Moving Challenge complete, Duke faculty and staff are proving their commitment to better health and wellness.

The annual employee health competition has entered the fourth week of its 10-week run, with 2,438 employees compiling 11,366 hours of exercise, tallying almost 88,000 miles worth of steps and dropping nearly 1,600 pounds.

Team leaderboards are determined by averaging each category across all team members.

So far, "Metabo-Lights," a team from the Duke Cancer Center's Nutrition Services office, is leading all teams in steps, averaging almost 306,000 per team member. "Looney Tunes," a team made up of Employee Occupational Health and Wellness staff has the most average exercise minutes per member at 1,628.

In addition, employees are ranked by their individual achievements. Betty Henderson, assistant to the director at Duke Visa Services, has been active and ranks fourth overall in exercise minutes, racking up 2,780 through the first few weeks of Get Moving.

Henderson said she tries to average about three hours of exercise a day by arriving to work early at Smith Warehouse. She'll walk around the building before work, for 30 minutes during lunch and after work as well as walking on a treadmill at home.

"I'm a diabetic, and I need to get healthy," Henderson said. "If I can lower by blood pressure and lose weight, I think I can come off a number of medications I'm currently taking, so I'm definitely motivated."

Get Moving participants can track their progress online and all Duke community members can find weekly tips on health and wellness at the Get Moving Challenge website.

The deadline to enter progress for the current round is Feb. 16.