Blacks Urged to Take the Challenge, Pound by Pound
Mall Rally to Kick Off Anti-Obesity Campaign
Thursday, April 5, 2007; Page DZ01
In the shadow of the Capitol, on the same ground where guns, wars and other life-and-death issues have been protested in recent years, African Americans will rally Saturday over another grave concern: obesity.
The tone of the gathering on the Mall will be more pep rally than demonstration, the goal more to inspire than incite. But in confronting what is now a health crisis within the black community, the 50 Million Pound Challenge is calling for nothing less than action: The extra weight has got to go.
"The numbers are unimaginable," said the campaign's founder and leader, Ian Smith, a prominent black physician, author and television commentator who wants the issue taken up on a national scale. "It's not just [an individual's] problem. It's a problem for all of us."
Nearly four in five black women in the United States are overweight or obese -- the worst rate of any group-- and nearly a quarter of black females ages 6 to 19 fit that classification. Although the percentages of black boys and men with weight problems are not similarly disproportionate compared with the overall population, the numbers are extremely high and are growing. The already skewed prevalence of health complications within the community continues to increase, too.
Many blacks, Smith said, often seem resigned to these complications. In part because parents and grandparents suffered, present generations see diagnoses such as diabetes or heart disease as inevitable in their lives. "Part of our message is . . . you are not destined to have this sort of medical fate," Smith said.
The campaign will kick off with a star-laden lineup featuring Patti LaBelle and other black performers, a one-mile walk, pedometers and health screenings. In the next six months, Smith will lead similar efforts in more than a dozen cities, including Baltimore, Memphis, Detroit and Oakland, Calif. The challenge, sponsored by State Farm Insurance Co., will offer participants free access to a Web site ( http:/
"I didn't want the finger-wagging," said Smith, who appears as a medical and diet expert on VH1's "Celebrity Fit Club." Where lectures and exhortations have made little difference, Smith said, he thinks encouragement, fun and rewards will.
"We haven't given the positive hope," he said.
The campaign has been endorsed by numerous organizations, including the National Medical Association, which represents African American physicians.
"This is an opportunity for all of us -- because doctors are patients, too -- to take control of our own well-being," said association President Albert W. Morris Jr., a radiologist in Memphis who has fought his own battles with weight. He wants to personally contribute to the challenge total -- "50 big ones" -- and inspire friends, family and patients.
To be successful, Morris said, an initiative of this kind must target both the young and the old. An overwhelming percentage of black children with obese parents become obese. "It's phenomenal," he said.
Two years ago, the federal government awarded $1.2 million toward anti-obesity efforts targeting African American families. In Chicago, instructors trained parents on how to prepare healthier meals; the mothers and fathers signed a contract agreeing to do exercise programs with their children. In Atlanta, doctors developed "sugar-free" school zones.
The projects' effect is being evaluated. "People are willing to engage in this if they see it as a real problem," said Garth N. Graham, deputy assistant secretary for minority health in the Department of Health and Human Services.
Groups such as the National Urban League are focusing attention through various projects.
"It is an epidemic among our children and adults," league President Marc H. Morial said. The organization has been studying community factors that contribute to weight problems, such as lack of grocery stores in some neighborhoods and the proximity of facilities for exercising, and soon will complete an "environmental analysis" of the District and Houston. Almost a century ago, he noted, the league addressed childhood nutrition as one of its first concerns. "Here we are, nearly 100 years later. Now we're concerned about obesity."
Morial expects the 50 Million Pound Challenge to "inspire and encourage people."
The rally is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. Saturday on the Mall, near Seventh Street NW. The campaign's goal is well within reach, Smith said. He has done the math: If one-quarter of the 20 million African Americans who are overweight decide to participate, and each loses 10 pounds each, that equals 50 million pounds.
And if even more get involved and the scale tips higher?
"If that's our problem," he said, "that's a great problem to have."
