For Immediate Release ------- 2/18/2004 Printable Copy

Press Contact: John Sarno Phone: (212) 420-1308

TEQUESTA, Fl, February 18 th, 2004 – The National Coalition for a Healthy America (NCHA) has announced a collaborative effort with an extensive Alaska fitness initiative sponsored by the Galena City School District. The effort – comparable to similar NCHA programs that are improving America’s health nationwide -- will implement a pedometer-based, conceptually tailored walking program for home-schooled Alaskan children.

“We do see obesity going up in Alaska – like it is almost everywhere else,” noted Leroy Grant of the Galena City School District and its Interior Distance Education of Alaska (IDEA) Home Schooling Correspondence Program. “We want to establish a regimen that can help encourage lifelong cardiovascular health, and we’ll be incorporating the NCHA pedometers and program accordingly.”

In Alaska, the programs will ultimately be utilized statewide -- from Point Barrow to Anchorage, and from Fairbanks to Nome. These NCHA pedometer programs enable users to calculate their daily step count, and facilitates steady, incremental improvements in fitness levels – as well as providing various nutritional, health-related recommendations. And, unlike some other walking-based fitness programs, the NCHA program inherently provides trackable scientific data for analysis by the physician and academic communities.

“There’s a war waged against obesity every day in the United States, and we’re in the thick of it” said Gary Yarusso, newly appointed Executive Director of the NCHA. “We hope programs like the one to be introduced in Alaska will yield the kind of positive results we’re seeing from similar efforts to combat the country’s No. 1 public health problem.”

The National Coalition for a Healthy America (NCHA) is a non-profit corporation established to combat the growing obesity epidemic and its related conditions. The mission of the NCHA is to work in concert with state and local governments, non-profit organizations and institutions to develop and implement broad-based walking and fitness initiatives that increase public awareness of healthy lifestyles.

To reach these ends, the NCHA has developed a variety of programs that use walking to promote physical activity. Throughout school, community and corporate initiatives, it has become apparent that tailored walking programs can successfully combat the physiological disadvantages rendered by an otherwise sedentary lifestyle. Such walking programs, though simple in concept, have had a dramatic impact on the health and fitness of the participants.

“The NCHA believes that one static, monolithic program or fitness philosophy does not serve the needs of a desperately overweight nation,” said Yarusso. “Instead, we’re committed to working with each community or group on an individual basis, and helping them implement a program that serves their needs.”

The NCHA believes that, in order to make a significant impact on the roots of the obesity problem in our country, a program must 1) be accessible to the entire population base, 2) be scaleable, to allow implementation across diverse demographic and geographic communities, 3) provide trackable scientific data to gauge its success, and 4) provide a common link that makes the program useable by the population regardless of age, physical condition, current weight, or access to educational and fitness resources. And, the NCHA recognizes that reversing the steep arc of the obesity epidemic will require effective collaboration among government, voluntary and private sectors, as well as commitments to action by individual communities.

In a recent Philadelphia program, The Mayor’s Office of Health & Fitness in that city helped sponsor a walking program that featured 32 diabetic Philadelphia residents participating in a walking/nutrition program. An estimated 95 percent of these participants were also suffering from obesity when they began the initiative. Utilizing NCHA pedometers, nearly all of the participants (after four weeks in the program) improved their cardiovascular health to the degree that they were able to reduce their insulin and oral medication intake by as much as 50 percent.

Some sponsors/partners in the established and forthcoming initiatives include The Walker’s Warehouse (the nation’s most esteemed provider of walking accessories and programs); Gwen Foster, Health and Fitness Czar for the above-mentioned Office of Health & Fitness office in Philadelphia; Mary Lou Charland of the Honeoye School in greater Rochester, NY; the Memorial Healthcare System of Hollywood, FL; Nova Southeastern University of Broward County, FL, and the New Haven (CT) Family Alliance. Additional NCHA Advisory Council members and pending sponsors include a variety of fitness-related organizations in communities and schools around America.

The NCHA is continuing its invitation to sponsors nationwide to join in the campaign for a healthy America. For more information about becoming a sponsor of the NCHA, or implementing a walking program, please call Gary Yarusso at (877) 843-2358, or visit their website at www.forahealthyamerica.org