Which group of children are the most physically active on the Island?Body & Soul cannot say exactly but the 20 children in Julie Ross’ P5 class at Harrington Sound Primary are likely close to the top.The students as a team beat out all other local schools competing in the Global Children’s Challenge (GCC). More than 300 local students completed the international online event last month, joining more than 120,000 students from 27 countries.Sponsored by Colonial Medical, the GCC is touted as the world’s largest health initiative for children. Mirrored on the Global Corporate Challenge that Colonial staff participated in over the summer, the Children’s Challenge saw local students wear pedometers and try to clock as many steps as possible each day.Their daily figures were totaled and logged into the GCC website, where the totals were converted to a distance and each team’s progress charted on a virtual tour of the world. And the more active the team, the further they progressed on the virtual journey. And wherever they landed, they learned a bit about the place. Harrington Sound Primary, physical education teacher Linda Hines said this aspect really excited her students.“Mrs Ross, their classroom teacher, would visit the website with them and talk about the country they were in. This was fantastic as it mixed social studies with physical activity,” she said.Children in this team visited destinations as New Zealand, Fiji, Turkmenistan, Palau and Djibouti.But just how active were the Harrington Sound students? Organisers of the online event suggested a daily step count of 15,000 for each student. Harrington Sound pupils surpassed that, averaging 15,811 each day.Sandys Secondary Middle School team and Northlands Primary team were close seconds with an average step count of 12,950 and 12,395, respectively. Port Royal Primary, Prospect Primary, Mount Saint Agnes Academy, Somerset Primary and Gilbert Institute also competed in the Children’s Challenge.Jacqueline Teunissen, Corporate Wellness Director for Colonial, organised the Children’s Challenge after the company’s Corporate Challenge met with great success.“Due to our employees direct participation in the Global Corporate Challenge, each employee was able to sponsor a child for free in the Global Children’s Challenge,” she said.“We at Colonial Medical believe that sponsoring this event helps ensure children develop healthy habits early in life and, more importantly, that exercise becomes fun and sustainable for all children regardless of their fitness level, athletic skills, body shape or environment,” she added.Harrington Sound physical education teacher Linda Hines agreed and noted that her students surpassed the 15,000-step goal in their natural day-to-day activities at home and at school.“We did not have any special events or programmes to help the students increase the number of steps they achieved every day,” she said. “They are active and work hard. This is a record and reflection of that,” she added.Child obesity is a growing problem in Bermuda and Healthy Schools Coordinator Marie Beach said nearly 19 percent of 11 to 18-year-olds are overweight or obese. Recognising that obesity is becoming more common in local children, Ms Hines said no one in the P5 class that participated in the challenge was overweight.“Obesity is not that great a problem at our school. Our students are physically active here and are in a lot of activities outside of school,” she said. “Working on physical fitness is a part of every PE class. For the first five to ten minutes of every lesson (PE lesson) I have the students doing physical fitness whether it’s playing tag or doing push-ups and running around.”Ms Beach said the more local students are encouraged and supported in being physically active, the better their chances of making it part of their lifestyle.“We hope to see more Bermuda schools participating in this challenge in 2012, and in the long-term, that our children adopt a healthier lifestyle and become more physically active,” she said.Ms Hines said although the challenge was over, students at Harrington Sound remain excited.“Many of them still wear their pedometers. Many have run the batteries out. What they’re doing now is trying to reach the ultimate goal of 99,999 steps,” she said. “I think that’s the maximum number the pedometer records and that’s what they’re going for. It’s still fun to them. We would welcome the programme again next year.”