StepJockey aims to tackle obesity and promote fitness by labelling the stairs of the world for calorie burn

A new initiative called StepJockey has just been launched, backed by the Department of Health via the Small Business Research Initiative, with the aim of tackling obesity and strengthening the hearts of office workers and commuters.

As with all the best ideas it’s an amazingly simple concept – once you have entered the stairs’ address on the StepJockey website (http://www.stepjockey.com) it will calculate exactly how many calories you’ll burn climbing them. Stairs burn more calories than you think and by rating them it could not only help keep yourself fit but inspire others too.

StepJockey was founded by Helen Nuki, a behavioural economics expert and mother of four, who had the idea after her seven-year-old daughter wondered why official signs “only tell you about the things that are bad for you”.

Helen comments, “StepJockey is about looking at the positive and promoting fitness for everyone a little bit at a time.

“Stair climbing is a surprisingly powerful form of exercise and it has benefits that go far beyond weight loss. You burn about a calorie for every ten steps you climb and scientific studies show regular stair climbing can reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke as well as improving aerobic and muscular skeletal fitness.”

The StepJockey website and app has been cleverly devised so that any set of stairs can be mapped and rated for calorie burn in seconds.

Once stairs are rated free posters that display calorie burn information, along with health messages, can be printed off from the website.

Alternatively, companies can order more sophisticated ‘smart signs’. The intelligent design of the signage has been created in conjunction with Signbox, the award-winning sign manufacturer.

Proof that StepJockey signs actively encourage people to take the stairs rather than use a lift or escalator comes from extensive pre-launch trials that showed stair climbing increased by up to 29% when the building was equipped with the StepJockey smart signs.

When office workers were able to track and “gamify” their stair climbing, stair use jumped by over 500%. Mark Bartlett, Managing Director of Signbox, comments, “We are delighted to have been chosen by StepJockey as their sign partner. Whilst free signs can be printed off from the StepJockey website we are sure many companies will opt for ordering a more permanent and stylish looking ‘smart sign’ that can be wall mounted at the foot of the relevant stairs.

“These are smart in more ways than one – not only do they look great, clearly showing the number of calories burned, but they also feature next generation NFC technology – stairs users can “tap” the sign with their NFC enabled smartphone and it will download an app that enables them to track their calorie burn and progress, set goals and even compete with work colleagues”.

StepJockey is available to companies and organisations who want to build the initiative into their existing health and wellbeing plans for employees.

For more information, images and full details go to: http://www.stepjockey.com.