By Megan Wilcox, APR, ThedaCare Media and Public Relations
Sibling rivalry can make you do a lot of things…and in the case of three Green Bay sisters, it might even get you to exercise more.
When I launched this year’s Pedometer Challenge for ThedaCare and ThedaCare Orthopedic Care in early February, I asked participants to find a buddy to help them keep on track as they work to increase their daily number of steps. Participants received a pedometer and a log to record how many steps they took daily.
Chelly Boutott of WFRV Channel 5 knew immediately who she would ask to be her buddies: her sisters, Melissa, who is 18 months older than her, and Jess, who is seven years younger.
“Missy is the super competitive one and beats me at everything,” Chelly says. “Because I’m not that competitive, I spend my energy trying to make her mad because it’s funny.”
Case in point: when the trio recently ate dinner, Chelly got up and marched in place for 30 minutes to make Missy, who had just 1,500 steps that day because she was busy working as a deaf education teacher, mad. “Jess and I were over 12,000 since we both exercised that day,” says Chelly, adding that the marching in place incident was successful in ticking off her sister.
Missy is taking the pedometer challenge very seriously and admits to randomly doing jumping jacks and walking in place while watching TV at night.
“We try to outdo each other in lots of way to be funny or irritating. We find it works,” says Chelly, adding that after I shared with other Challenge participants what Missy was doing during her TV shows, she made sure she met her daily step challenge goal even if it meant getting up and walking around the house at 11:30 p.m.
The sisters hope the pedometer challenge helps all three get more exercise and get in better shape.
“I like to call my sisters and tell them how many steps I have and see how they’re doing,” Chelly says.
