The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

The 50 Million Pound Challenge

The following is from the website (click here):

Joining THE 50 MILLION POUND CHALLENGE means becoming part of something exciting, life-altering, historic, and tremendously beneficial! Not only for you, but to others in your family and community, as well as to future generations of African Americans.

Why Join?

Participating in The Challenge is not just about shedding those extra pounds — though that is critical to your health and well-being.

It’s about all of us coming together and looking out for each other as we work to take more control of our lives. It’s about taking the time to reach out and lock hands as we join forces to fight the very real risk that being overweight poses to ourselves, our families, and our community.

The Crisis

The number one health crisis facing not only African Americans, but all Americans, is being overweight. Two out of every three adults (66%) today are considered to be overweight, or even worse, obese. Even more troubling, 17% of all children in the U.S. are now overweight. The statistics for African Americans are even more alarming—where almost 80% of adult women and 67% of adult men are overweight. Equally worrisome is that 20% of African-American teenagers between the ages 12-19 are overweight, and this number appears to be rising.

Our teenagers are developing Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and in some cases, early signs of heart disease. This decline in our youths’ health can be attributed to poor diet, lack of exercise, and inadequate medical guidance.

What We Can Do

The very good news is that we have the ability to reverse these unhealthy trends! For many of us it’s not just a matter of fitting into a smaller size, but a matter of life and death! THE CHALLENGE can do so much, not just for our physical health, but for our minds and spirit too. Below are just a few of the many things I hope we’ll accomplish together.

* Shed those excess pounds, achieve healthier weights, and reduce our risk for life-threatening diseases.

* Unite as a community and pool our strength and resources to overcome the health problems that afflict us.

* Learn more about our bodies and what we can do to live healthier, longer lives.

* Teach our youth the importance of making healthy lifestyle decisions that will benefit them for years to come.

Yours in The Challenge,

Ian K. Smith, M.D.

Man, I am totally on board with this. This is my first time hearing about this (I think). The good news for me is since the beginning of March of this year, I have been on a diet. Since that time I have lost 16 pounds with about 16 to go. The key for my weight loss has been DAILY exercise. Also, I have greatly reduced my intake of bad carbs (white bread, white rice and other processed foods) and increased produce consumption. My goal is to get down to the size I was at my wedding (still trying to impress ol’ girl —and she is )

What inspired me to do this was that while on a dentist visit, they noticed that my blood pressure was a bit high (mind you, part of that was because I was anxious about my dentist visit and the other part was because of weight). When they told me that my reading was 150 over something, I got really scared. So much so that as soon as I got home, I told my wife that I was going on a diet. Recently when I took my blood pressure, it was about 112 over 76 (roughly).

I say all of that because I am so tired of hearing about folks dying from the results of obesity. Man, I have a wife to love, children to raise and a world to explore.

I’m not trying to go out like that!