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American Morning

Philadelphia Looks to Trim the Fat

Aired July 03, 2001 - 10:25   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is time to talk fat. And Philadelphia is doing that. It has, in some respects, become the City of Brotherly Love Handles. In 1999, a men's fitness magazine rated Philly the fattest city in the nation. Well, that led the city to launch its 76 Tons of Fun campaign, a bid to slim down and shape up. And today, residents are weighing in to see if they were able to trim the fat. Our Maria Hinojosa is joining us from Philadelphia with the latest. Maria, a slender good morning to you.

MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

Well, you know, usually if you go on a diet, you might want to keep to yourself. But not so in the city of Philadelphia, where everyone has decided that it's got to become a public event, all of this inspired by the mayor, who had to respond to, well, a very particular challenge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MAYOR JOHN STREET, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: And when men's fitness magazines called the City of Philadelphia the fattest city in the country, I didn't think it was our responsibility to start picking at it, because I knew we were too fat. And we decided that we were going to accept the challenge because it's a great challenge to accept.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HINOJOSA: Now, apparently over the past 76 days about 25,000 Philadelphians have become part of the program to lose, get this, 76 tons. To do that they'd have to have about 30,000 people from this 1.5 million population losing about only five pounds. But the mayor has said that it's not just about losing weight, that there's a broader issue that he wants to bring up in relationship to health and fitness. And Sandy Weston, is a trainer and is chair of the mayor's commission on fitness. So for you it was not only lose weight but do what?

SANDY WESTON, PHILADELPHIA FITNESS COMMITTEE: Make fitness fun because if fitness is fun, you're going to stay with it. And I wanted to try to educate people to say you know what? It doesn't have to be boring. Guess what we can do? We can dance, we can bike, we can walk, whatever is going to make you stay with the program.

HINOJOSA: Do you feel like people kind of in this past 76 days, yes, there's been something like oh, OK, I can dance and it means I might lose weight or?

WESTON: There's been an energy. Like they're not embarrassed to say I can lose weight, like I have to lose weight. That's OK. So we created this dance, the Philly street line dance. It's been so much fun. Everybody can do it. I'm going to show you later. You're going to do it with me, right?

HINOJOSA: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

WESTON: No, anybody can do it -- seniors, little kids, go into the communities they're like wait a minute, I'm sweating. I'm exercising. This isn't so bad.

HINOJOSA: So the idea is that Philadelphia will now be known not for the Philly cheese steak but for the Philly line dance?

WESTON: The Philly street line dance because we might like to eat, but we love to dance.

HINOJOSA: And every pound, wait, how many pounds do you lose with every dance that you do?

WESTON: Actually, it depends on how you dance. But it's about 550 calories for an hour in case, you know, you're interested. But if you dance like me, it could be 1,000.

HINOJOSA: OK. Well, we're going to be keeping our eye on Sandy when we continue to have people not weighing in. In fact, they're weighing out to see whether or not they met that goal of 76 tons of weight lost in Philadelphia. Back to you in the studio.

KAGAN: All right, Maria, thank you very much. A lot of people across the country can relate to the folks in Philadelphia. There is that ongoing battle against the bulge. A recent government study found that more than half of Americans reported being overweight. And for some of those folks, diet and exercise are not enough. They need more radical steps. Our medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen here to talk about some surgical solutions to obesity, and this is really when you take it the next step.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's the ultimate weight loss treatment. It is also the treatment of last resort. This is treatment, these surgeries are becoming more and more popular. But it's not something you do just to look better for you high school reunion. It's something you can only do if you're at least 100 pounds over your ideal weight. And there are various kinds of weight loss surgeries. They all have the same goal, which is to give you a smaller stomach. So it's really very simple. If your stomach is a fifth or a tenth the size of what it used to be, you can't eat very much.

Now, let's take a look. We have some video that shows how these surgeries work. This is the old type of surgeries which involved staples and a ring, and that makes the stomach smaller. You just fill up faster. However, it didn't help people as much as they had hoped so they developed a new kind, which is just staples right across the top of the stomach, also creating a smaller stomach. Good then gets diverted directly to the intestines so they create this bypass. That's why it's called gastric bypass surgery.

And then the FDA has just approved something called the lap band, which is a band that goes around the stomach rather than staples and that also makes the stomach smaller.

Now, it's important to note, again, this is only for people who are morbidly obese and with any surgery, you're going to have risks. So this is something that, the staples could get herniated. There are all sorts of things that could happen. They're trying to make the surgery safer. For example, when Carnie Wilson had her surgery, she had it done laparoscopically.

KAGAN: OK. That is for the morbidly obese, as you said. For other people out there, every kind of has that little spot, you know, that they might be thinking about liposuction.

COHEN: Right. Exactly. Now, it's interesting because plastic surgeons say you should have liposuction if you're a normal weight, which may seem kind of strange. But what they want is they want people who are just going after those target areas just like a little bit of fat around the thighs or a little bit of a love handle. But you're supposed to be normal weight. So if you're a hundred pounds or more overweight, liposuction is not for you.

KAGAN: The answer for you. It's also not the answer for a lot of people.

COHEN: Right. Exactly.

KAGAN: It's just one of the options that's out there.

COHEN: Exactly.

KAGAN: Elizabeth Cohen, thanks for that information.

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