August 2008 -- Obesity has gone public as news reports, restaurants and even lawmakers count calories and trash trans fats.
But getting personal about excess body baggage is still on the taboo list - unless you're the proud mayor of Oklahoma City and somebody calls your city fat.
With Oklahoma City among the top-10 fattest cities in America according to
Men's Fitness magazine, Mayor Mick Cornett is urging residents to take personal responsibility for their health by getting off the couch and into a regimen of good nutrition and exercise.
At the end of 1997, when Cornett issued a new year's challenge for the people of Oklahoma City to lose a total of 1 million pounds, this avid tennis player and former television sportscaster was already well on the way to shaping his own slimmer and healthier self.
Cornett shed 42 pounds from his 5-foot-9-inch frame between April 2007 and February 2008, dropping from 217 to 175.
"I lost a pound a week until I lost 42 pounds," Cornett said in a recent phone interview. "I think tennis was an important part of it. As mayor I was gaining five or 10 pounds a year; I realized I had to do something about it."
He made two decisions: to cut calories by adjusting what he ate and to change his workout.
"I decided to play more tennis and do less on the treadmill," said the 50-year-old Cornett, who started playing tennis in the sixth grade at the then-brand-new Oklahoma City tennis center. "I think if you're a competitive person tennis is a great outlet for that competitiveness. For me it's the most enjoyable way to exercise.
"In tennis I will push myself, I will play hard, and run and sweat and do all the aerobic type of things I wasn't doing on the elliptical. About the most fun I have is playing tennis with my son," he said. Cornett, who has three sons, plays at The Greens Country Club and at a high school's public courts.
"Tennis seems to attract people with high standards," he said. "There are not a lot of slackers hanging around tennis centers. It's important to me to associate myself with people who are trying to wake up every day and do the best they can."
Cornett joined about 75 like-minded tennis enthusiasts, including a number of USPTA Professionals, for a free Tennis Across America™ clinic on May 31 at Earlywine Tennis Center in Oklahoma City.
"I really appreciate the tennis industry and the professionals who make it what it is," Cornett said. "I know at my club the manner in which the professionals handle themselves is a great example to the members."
Gary Trost, president of the USPTA Missouri Valley Division and former tennis teacher to Cornett's sons, invited the mayor to the TAA clinic.
Trost has joined the "OKC Million" diet program and has lost eight pounds in a couple of months. "I'm shooting for 25 pounds," he said. "I've tried to play a little more tennis, eat healthy and smarter." He said fellow Mo Valley board member Kendell Hale was also motivated by this program. "He's doing a Jared thing (eating sub sandwiches)."
Cornett believes he chose the right approach to getting his hometown off the fattest-city lists. "It doesn't do any good to (simply) say the mayor eats more vegetables," he maintained. "If I put the entire city on a diet I will get people's attention." Besides, "If you're doing something hard it helps to do it with a group."
His bold public-awareness campaign, "This City is Going on a Diet," features an interactive Web site (www.thiscityis-goingonadiet.com) where anyone can sign up at no cost and track their weight loss.
As of Aug. 5, more than 21,000 people had registered and lost a reported 117,000-plus pounds since the first of the year. Resources on the Web site, which features a walking, talking likeness of the mayor, include links to a host of local weight-management and fitness programs and facilities, as well as nutritional information and even healthy recipies.
"If people need help we want them to get help," Cornett said. "We also want them to learn how obesity leads to a lot of other diseases and health risks."
Although it has been reported that the goal was to lose 1 million pounds by the end of the year, Cornett said there is no time limit. "There is no reason to stop this effort if it is working.
"We really feel like we've experienced a cultural shift concerning obesity," he said. "What this initiative has done is it has penetrated through whatever stumbling blocks were caused by us refusing to speak about obesity because it concerns the way you look.
"This is a problem everywhere and this is a community that is actually doing something about it," he asserted. "We've been enthused, with people bombarding our Web site. People are donating their time to answer e-mail and no government money is involved."
Oklahoma City has, however, invested millions of dollars renovating its two tennis centers (staffed by USPTA pros) and offers a multitude of courts in public parks.
"There are a number of tennis courts in this country that go unused," Cornett said. "Anything we can do to get people active and get them on tennis courts is going to make us a better society.
"There are a lot of life's lessons you can pick up from tennis," he observed. "Maybe the most important among them is that the more you put into it, the more you're going to get out of it. The more you practice, the better you're going to get. If we applied that to all our facets of life, think how much better we would be."
