Last night while I was watching Adult Swim on Cartoon Network I caught an episode of King of the Hill and found it to be a hilarious and poignant use of the pedometer. The pedometer is one of the greatest exercise inventions. It is thought to have been first introduced by founding father Thomas Jefferson and it is a simple mechanism that enables the user to count his steps and see how far he has traveled.
In this episode of King of the Hill Bobby Hill, the main character’s young son, is an over weight and lazy little kid. His father Hank is always trying to get the young man to get off the couch and go do something with his life, more specifically he wants him to play sports and life a more active lifestyle in general. Bobby is tasked by his school with having to sign people up to pledge money to him for a “Fun Run.” Basically, Bobby gets people to pledge money and each mile he runs in the Fun Run will increase the money the pledges have to spend.
The long awaited day arrives and Bobby Hill starts running the Fun Run and quickly gets out of breath and quits.
Bobby’s Dad waits for him at the finish line with a video camera only to get a phone call from Bobby asking to be picked up pretty much at the starting line of the race. Needless to say Bobby’s father is not pleased and he decides to teach the boy a lesson.
Here’s where the episode gets relevant to the pedometer watch. Hank forces Bobby to wear a pedometer watch in order to count his steps and he says to Bobby: by the end of the day that watch better say one hundred kilometers of you’re grounded. This is a great use of the pedometer watch that all parents should employ if they are struggling with trying to get their children to exercise.
The pedometer watch will track the movement of your child and you will be able to keep a record and more importantly keep tabs on their exercising daily habits. If you see that their pedometer is reading pretty low for a particular day you can
