For actor and comedian and box office star Kevin Hart, staying in shape is no joke. He takes his health and wellness seriously – and he’s using his massive social media platform to get people moving. He has teamed up with the wellness app Rally Health to motivate the masses to get healthy. And it might be working.
Via his 19.6 million Twitter followers, he recently invited all of Boston to run a “spontaneous 5K” with him. His late night tweet invitation went out to anyone interested in meeting at Chestnut Hill Reservoir the next morning for a run.
Considering that only 20 percent of American adults meet the physical activity guidelines, most of us need a good dose of exercise motivation. Nearly 300 people showed up for the self-dubbed “Historic Kevin Hart 5K Run.” That’s an impressive number, given…
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…how hard it is to get people to exercise. In fact, we are at a historical low regarding how little we move, with most of us spending more than seven hours a day sitting.
Since then, Kevin has done another spontaneous meet up run in Atlanta that actually turned out more than twice the amount of people than Boston.
Social support and encouragement is actually a great tool that Kevin is using to help people get healthy. Research published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health examined whether a Facebook social support group could increase the number of steps per day among college freshmen.
The researchers found that women in the Facebook social support group increased their walking by about 1.5 miles per day more than women in the standard walking intervention. This is an impressive difference that could have a big impact on the women’s health if they stick with it.
Also, the National Institute of Health published that those who have a workout partner or health accountability partner are three times more likely to stick through until their health goals are completely versus those who don’t.
“At the end of the day, I’m a comedian. But I love to live. If you can live you can laugh. It’s all about health being healthy,” Kevin Hart says.
