The Big Devon March is a month-long challenge to see which Devon workplace can achieve the most steps, organised by Active Devon. Charlotte, Office Manager at AES Sustainability Consultants, put together a team to encourage her fellow colleagues to move more during a working day.
“I am aware the amount of time people spend sitting down has been linked to poor health and long-term medical conditions but I am as guilty as my fellow colleagues and regularly sit at my desk too long during the working day, so I thought some healthy competition would make us all more aware of the damage we are doing to ourselves by not moving regularly.” Charlotte LW
Studies have linked excessive sitting with being overweight and obese, type 2 diabetes, some types of cancer, and early death. We cannot ignore that research, we must act now to protect our health for the future.
Our team consisted of 26 employees, we noticed a difference from day one; parking down the road instead of the car park to get in some extra steps, walking over to talk to colleagues instead of emailing and group walks together at lunch time.
“I wasn’t sure this would really change my routine much, given I was pretty active beforehand, but once I got going it did actually make me want to do more and be more active.” Fraser B
“It made me rethink. By using an activity tracker and seeing the difference in steps on days when I have actively trained vs. days with little activity. Therefore after the challenge I am trying to introduce more casual activities like walking to the shops to keep a fairly consistent step record throughout the week.” Maggie S
“I just wanted to beat Jono” Fraser B
We came 34th (out of 101). We are really proud of our team for their consistent effort throughout the month and really backing this challenge. We hope the outcome of this is that we are more mindful during the working day and choose to move more and sit less.
| Position | Member | Total Steps |
| 1 | Fraser B | 534,442 |
| 2 | Jono | 525,460 |
| 3 | Ed | 459,990 |
| 4 | Alex | 400,157 |
| 5 | Alice | 398,146 |
| 6 | Charlotte D | 345,389 |
| 7 | Ella | 343,104 |
| 8 | Ross | 329,098 |
| 9 | Mitch | 305,873 |
| 10 | Maggie | 270,666 |
| 11 | Max | 260,649 |
| 12 | Laura | 240,538 |
| 13 | Anna | 222,028 |
| 14 | Charlotte LW | 213,948 |
| 15 | Row | 206,733 |
| 16 | Lindsey | 201,233 |
| 17 | Sarah | 200,218 |
| 18 | Andrew | 197,661 |
| 19 | Mel | 185,505 |
| 20 | Aaron | 159,643 |
| 21 | Kat | 156,498 |
| 22 | Fraser H | 147,414 |
| 23 | Kieran | 138,355 |
| 24 | Lisa | 88,117 |
| 25 | Yasmin | 52,105 |
| 26 | Ben | 9,300 |
| Total | 6,592,270 | |
Articles on the subject:
- https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/14/sit-less-and-move-more-to-reduce-risk-of-early-death-study-says
- https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/why-sitting-too-much-is-bad-for-us/