At the Mayor's Challenge Kick-off were Timothy G. Lohman, PhD, professor, UA Department of Physiology, Mayor Bob Walkup, and Lauve Metcalfe, MS, coordinator, Mayor's Challenge, UA Department of Physiology.

The Challenge is coordinated by the UA College of Medicine; implemented through the City of Tucson and supported by the Wellness Councils of Arizona, the Arizona Governor's Council on Health, Physical Fitness and Sports, as well as other cooperating groups, sponsoring agencies and funding partners.

Designed to increase awareness of healthy lifestyle habits and motivate everyone to be more active, the Challenge will employ weight loss strategies found to be successful by the UA Colleges of Medicine and Agriculture as a part of the "Healthy Weight 4 Life" research study.

"The potential health benefits from reduction in overweight and obesity and increasing the fitness levels of adults are a matter of considerable public health importance for the people of Arizona, not only from a disease prevention standpoint, but most importantly, from a quality of life standpoint," says Timothy G. Lohman, PhD, professor, Department of Physiology, UA College of Medicine. "Studies show that people who are physically active manage stress better, sleep better and feel better. They also are likely to be healthier, miss work less often, and when they are absent they return to work faster than those who are less active."