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American Morning
Mayor John Street on Philadelphia's Weigh-In
Aired July 03, 2001 - 09:05 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.
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Now to a rather weighty issue. Throughout the morning we're going to be talking about weight loss, health and fitness and we're going to Philadelphia where the mayor recently launched a campaign to trim the fat there, not from the city budget, but from the city's waistline.
It's weigh-in day at Philadelphia and CNN's Maria Hinojosa joins us now from one of the nation's fattest cities.
Maria, good morning.
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Brian. Well, you know most people know of Philadelphia as the City of Brotherly Love, but among the health conscious here in Philadelphia, they call it the City of Brotherly Love Handles or the City of Blubberly Loves. So all of that helped to inspire the mayor, Mayor John Street, to ask the city of Philadelphia to go on a 76-day diet to try to bring down the weight loss -- to try to actually lose 76 tons in 76 days.
And it's hard to kind of quantify how much weight a city can lose. That's why we have the mayor here on hand to tell us.
So exactly how are you going to be able to tell how many people lost weight, Mayor?
JOHN F. STREET, MAYOR OF PHILADELPHIA: Well, we will know -- we will know pretty precisely how many people lost weight. Figuring out precisely what the weight loss will be will be a little bit more problematic. We've had a great program. People are beginning to weigh out today. Others weighed out a couple of days ago so we could start getting some kind of an idea, but the weight loss will literally be in the tons of weight and that's very important to us. But even more important is this is a program that encourages people to change their lifestyles. We want people...
HINOJOSA: Which is something that you did in your own life?
STREET: Well, yeah, I actually can remember a time when I couldn't fit into a size 52 suit and I lost just a lot -- lots of pounds and I've kept it off now for 32 years. And the wonderful difference it makes in the way you feel and the way you conduct yourself is just -- it's just -- it's amazing. And we believed, after "Fitness" magazine dubbed us the fattest city in the world, rather than, you know, become defensive that we were going to do something about it and we're going to be the fittest city in America and we feel great about it.
HINOJOSA: Well, if you've got Naomi Williams to help you, you're certainly going to be one of the fittest cities.
Now, Naomi, you lost 69 pounds in how many days?
NAOMI WILLIAMS, PHILADELPHIA RESIDENT: In about -- it would be about 90 days.
HINOJOSA: And how...
WILLIAMS: So it was a little bit before the 76.
HINOJOSA: So how much does this city -- the fact that the city went on a diet, did that help you? Did it make it easier or were you going to do this anyway?
WILLIAMS: No, I think that my braces helped a great deal, but I -- but the city gave me that extra push, knowing that there were other people that were actually doing it. A lot of people -- I work for the city council and there were a lot of people who were inspired by my weight loss and who started to loss weight and there was a camaraderie...
(CROSSTALK)
HINOJOSA: So you were actually doing -- you were doing weigh-ins at the office like comparing?
WILLIAMS: Yes, and we all joined the gym. You know I had joined the gym first and then my co-workers joined the gym and some people stopped smoking so it was a camaraderie.
HINOJOSA: OK, well, a major health program here in the city of Philadelphia where we'll be reporting live as people continue to weigh-in to see whether or not they lost those 76 tons in 76 days.
Back to you, Brian. Maria Hinojosa.
NELSON: Maria, can I ask you a question before you go?
HINOJOSA: Sure.
NELSON: Maybe you want to ask the mayor, does he have any intentions of banning the chili -- the Philly cheese steak, which has seemed to be the origins of this?
HINOJOSA: So the anchor in Atlanta wants to know whether or not you're going to ban Philly cheese steaks?
STREET: I don't think so. We spent a lot of time trying to get people to understand that this isn't about the Philadelphia cheese steak, it's not about Tasty Cakes. We have great restaurants, we have great food here and we encourage people to enjoy that food but we want them to exercise moderation, get an -- get a health and fitness -- an exercise program, drink water, reduce the fat content in your diet. There are some small things that people can do that will be very helpful in improving the quality of their lives.
HINOJOSA: OK, which means that one Philly steak a week maybe? We'll see.
(LAUGHTER)
Back to you in the studio, Brian.
NELSON: Thank you, Maria, very much.
Over to you, Daryn.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Some rations there.
And we're going to have all the fitness news you can use in Philadelphia and across the country on CNN LIVE THIS MORNING.
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