Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota has come up with what it hopes is one of those win win plans as part of its “do” exercise campaign. You’ve seen the signs and the ads that say you should just do. Exercise, that is.

This time they’ve cut a deal of sorts with 20 area bike shops. You keep track of your biking miles, and the bike shops will give you 10 percent off of their merchandise. (Not all merchandise. Not bikes, for instance. Not sale items.) You can  find information on their web site here. It’s kind of a frequent flyer program for bicyclists.

You join at any of the participating bike shops, get a safety inspection and an odometer, and the bike shop keeps track of your mileage. If you bike 50 miles, you get a “do” water bottle. Bike 100 miles, you get 10 percent off store merchandise. Bike 200 miles get 10 percent off store merchandise, plus a pair of “do” socks and a “do” water bottle. And so on.

Jill Chamberlain, Blue Cross project manager for community initiatives, said that the idea came about as a compliment to the discounts health plan members get on their gym memberships. Some employers pay part of the membership fees for people who join fitness clubs. But bikers and runners who don’t pay to exercise are left out of that deal.

This is also a way for bike shops to encourage customer loyalty and get repeat business. They pay for the 10 percent discount, Blue Cross provides the “do” merchandise.

There are some interesting questions here, starting with whether an advertising campaign can actually get people to change their habits and get moving. In this deal, Blue Cross is providing a web site and free “do” stuff. The bike shops are spending the money in the form of discounts to bicyclists.

One avid bicyclist I know scoffed at the reward plan as nothing but a way for bike shops to generate foot traffic. It doesn’t go nearly far enough, he said. Why not, say, give people who ride 1,000 miles in a year — or a summer — $500 off a new bike? Now there’s an incentive, he said.

Chamberlain says this is the first time bike shops have tried anything like this. If it works, maybe it it will grow.

Would you do this? Is there enough in this for you to go to the trouble of getting an odometer, signing up at a bike shop and keeping track? Or is this just something that people who already bike a lot will use?

Sometimes the hardest thing to do as a parent is to say nothing. You can’t say “you’re too fat.” You can’t say “did you eat the whole bag?” You can’t say, “why aren’t you outside?”

But that may be the best way to help your kids lose weight or stay at a healthy weight. Mary Story, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, is an expert on adolescent obesity. She and her colleagues at the university have been running a research study called Project Eat for years. They’ve been following kids from pre-adolescence through teenage-hood and into young adulthood, surveying them and their families along the way. They are getting a handle on what works and what doesn’t.

 They know that if rising adolescent obesity rates have slowed down, as researchers reported yesterday, it’s because parents had a hand in it.

  ”What drives obesity are two things. Its food. And how they are moving their bodies,” she said.  

But it’s what parents don’t say — and what they do — that’s most important, she said. Eating regular family dinners is a big help, especially for girls, they found. So is taking the TV out of their bedrooms.

Don’t focus on their weight. Don’t focus on losing weight, she said. Instead, as long as you’re the one buying the groceries, focus on buying more fruit and vegetables and less junk. As long as you are the one making meals, make the portions a little smaller.

Entice them away from the computer and the TV. Do something with them that involves moving your bodies, and do that everyday. Too much? Okay then, four or five times a week.  ”Be a role model,” Story said. 

That’s a lot harder.

 What’s worked for you and your kids? Do you have any ideas to share about how you stopped the obesity epidemic in your family?

At last the gaming the industry may have something for the rest of us. Next week Nintendo will launch the U.S. version of Wii Fit. It’s an interactive home fitness system that employs avatars (each member of your family can create their own) to run you through exercises, aerobics, dance and games. It will even tell you what your body mass index is.The Japanese version, at least, will bluntly tell you that you’re fat. This demonstration video from Wii shows how it works.

The reviews to date say that it’s great for people who are not fitness freaks — which means most people. It’s a lot smaller and a whole lot less expensive than a treadmill or elliptical trainer. Some people who’ve used it say it’s a lot less boring as well. It costs about $90 for the software and the balance board, plus $250 for the Wii console. It’s a hot seller in Japan and Britain. And hey, maybe it will even inspire the gamers to get off the couch.

Here is Wired’s review of it.

Here’s the New York Time’s review.

I promise to write about dieting and weight loss rarely, and only when I have a good reason. Today, I do. Colin Firth.

Oh, and my colleague Laurie Hertzel, who writes Three Dog Blog in her spare time, and who can make anything engaging. Even aerobic exercise. So here are her wise words.

I had gained five pounds in Paris, and over the next few months found that not only was it impossible to get rid of them, but they were calling their friends. Parisian pounds, sadly, are no more glamorous than Midwestern American pounds. Desperate measures were needed.

So I rummaged around in my bag of old boring tricks, and came up with this: eat less, exercise more. I already walk a lot–well over an hour a day, with my dogs. I needed to add something aerobic.

I have an elliptical trainer in my basement, but I have never been able to stick to it. Music, podcasts, TV–none of it kept my attention. Each time I started an exercise routine, I ended up quitting in boredom.

This time, it occurred to me to haul the laptop into the basement and pop in a DVD. I started with Jane Austen’s “Persuasion,” and found that exercising with Captain Wentworth was not a bad way to go. Watching it 20 minutes a time kept my exercise routine going through February and into March.

And then PBS started running “Pride and Prejudice” on Sunday nights. I realize I am 13 years late to this party, but trust me–even 13 years late is pretty good for me; I seldom show up at parties at all. I caught a few snippets of it on Sundays, but only enough to determine that Mr. Darcy was a strange stalker-type character who did nothing but glare at the vivacious Lizzie from 10 feet away.

My friends assured me I was wrong; he is not a stalker, he’s reserved and proud and awkward, and he gets better. So I bought the DVD.

Ah. Now I get it.

“Pride and Prejudice” took me through March and April, 20 minutes at a time. It not only made me exercise, it made me want to exercise, so that I could find out what happened next. (Will the odious Mr. Collins really propose? When will Bingley come back? What is Mr. Darcy doing in that pond?) It made me extend my exercise time from 20 minutes to 25 minutes and occasionally beyond.

I have lost nine pounds.

And now that Mr. Darcy is transformed; and Lizzie is –well, not tamed, exactly, but made a bit less impetuous; and the big-eyed Mr. Bingley has finally done right by Jane, it is time for me to find a new boyfriend to serve as my personal trainer into the summer.

Any suggestions?

Here’s a study that offers up another reason to exercise  — it just might save you from dementia. 

Okay, that’s a broad conclusion for a pretty small study, and one that’s based on the recollections of people who are in their 70s and 80s. But it’s intriguing. 

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