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CNN Live At Daybreak

Time to Weigh In in Philadelphia Mayor's Citywide Weight-Loss Challenge

Aired July 03, 2001 - 07:10   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: This is a big day in Philadelphia. Last spring, Mayor John Street challenged the city's residents to drop the fat, trim that waistline, and get fit. Today is the big weigh-in day, to see if the challenge is actually working.

CNN's Maria Hinojosa is in the home of the Philly cheesesteak -- not to mention cream cheese -- Maria.

MARIA: That's right. Colleen, everyone knows Philadelphia is named the City of Brotherly Love, but among health fanatics here, it's called the city of blubberly love, or the city of brotherly love handles -- so much so that "Men's Fitness" magazine named Philadelphia the fattest city in the nation, two years ago.

That inspired Mayor John Street to get everybody out and on a diet for the past 76 days. That's a difficult thing to do when one of the trademarks of a city is a Philadelphia cheesesteak, which let me tell you, once you eat one in one day, you don't need to eat anymore.

One of the things that Mayor Street wanted to do was to talk about issue of health and fitness, and that's because city figures show that one in two residents are overweight; one in three residents of Philadelphia is clinically obese.

Mayor Street, who's African-American, also wanted, in particular, to reach out to the African-American community, and that's because nationally one in 10 African-American middle-aged women are 100 pounds overweight. That may help explain why black women are four times more likely then white women to die young from heart disease.

Later today, here at Penn's Landing, the Mayor will be having the weigh-in, to find out just how many people did lose weight, whether or not they were able to lose the 76 tons that the mayor had asked the city of Philadelphia to lose: 76 tons in 76 days. Then we'll see whether or not they come out to show up also for the fitness events, here, at Penn's Landing.

Reporting live, Maria Hinojosa, in Philadelphia. Back to you in the studio.

MCEDWARDS: Hey, Maria, before you go, tell us what the participation was like? I mean, did a lot of people get into this, and what were their attitudes like? MARIA: Well, what we do know is that the mayor had volunteers going around the city taking portable scales -- not as big as this particular scale out here -- and with diet information to different communities. There are many stories of people who, in fact, did use this as an impetus for themselves to get on a diet. But I guess we'll see later today how many of the thousands of Philadelphians will actually make it out here to put themselves on a scale in front of a national audience to see how much weight they lost.

MCEDWARDS: Brave souls, indeed. Thanks, Maria.

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