Arizona Fifth-Graders Walk Nearly 5.4 Billion Steps in Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona’s 2009 Walk On! Challenge

PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--More than 13,000 Arizona fifth-graders walked their way to a healthy lifestyle during the month of February, walking nearly 5.4 billion steps – or more than 100 trips around the Earth – in the fourth year of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona’s (BCBSAZ) Walk On! Challenge. These students represent more than 130 school districts statewide.

Walk On! is an innovative school-based program designed to motivate kids in grades K-8 statewide to incorporate exercise into their daily routines throughout the school year. The Walk On! Challenge component challenges fifth-graders statewide to compete for prizes by completing 10,000 steps every day in February. Individual students who met the Challenge goal of 280,000 steps were eligible to win one of four Wii Fit^TM systems or one of 40 iPod^® shuffles. The program also included a $2,500 grant toward a fitness-related activity for the school with the highest percentage of student participation.

Manzanita Elementary School of Tucson was selected as the winner of the $2,500 grant through a drawing from a pool of the 46 schools that reported 100 percent participation. The school’s students walked a total of 5 million steps.

“This year we had the most participation since the Walk On! Challenge began, and we’re very proud of each student that participated,” said Richard L. Boals, president and chief executive officer of BCBSAZ. “We hope the students will continue to walk each day with the determination to be active and live a healthy lifestyle.”

Participation in the Walk On! program has increased rapidly since its first year, in which more than 3,000 students participated in the Walk On! Challenge. More than 10,000 participated in 2007, and more than 11,000 students participated in 2008. Now with the fourth year of the Walk On! Challenge complete, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona can proudly say that close to 40,000 fifth-grade students have completed the challenge since 2006, which equates to approximately half of the total fifth-grade population today!

“Every year I challenge my classes to participate in Walk On!,” said Sandy Del Casale, a teacher at Hudlow Elementary in Tucson. “Daily walks are a year-round activity for us, but it’s fun to be able to count our steps with the pedometers during the month of February. My students always love the program.”

About Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona (BCBSAZ), an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, is the largest Arizona-based health insurance company. The not-for-profit company was founded in 1939 and provides health insurance products, services or networks to more than 1.3 million individuals. With offices in Phoenix, Flagstaff, Tempe and Tucson, the company employs more than 1,500 Arizonans. For information about BCBSAZ and its HealthyBlue program, an integrated program of tools, resources and services that can help Arizonans live a healthier lifestyle, visit www.azblue.com/HealthyBlue.