Shape Up Rhode Island offers Rhode Islanders a chance to round themselves into shape in a team setting.

06:49 PM EST on Friday, February 24, 2006

BY BRUCE LANDIS
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- With more than half of us overweight or obese, a local group is offering a low-key way for Rhode Islanders to do something about "an epidemic of obesity" that has serious health implications.

Organized by Brown University medical student Rajiv Kumar, the group Shape Up Rhode Island is urging Rhode Islanders to lose weight and exercise.

It's based on teams, each with a team captain, but it's about as informal as you can get. Want to join, or form a team? Find some friends, about 5 to 11 of them, coworkers, neighbors or acquaintances, they're the team and you're the captain. If somebody else in the group wants to be the captain, give her the job. Register at the program's Web site, www.shapeupri.org.

The captain collects the members' $10 registration fees, keeps track of how many hours of exercise the team members get and how much weight they lose, and reports that in. (He or she does not report how much anybody weighs, or other personal information. The program keeps track of how much weight you lose.) Physical activity includes anything that raises the heart rate.

The participants get information and encouragement -- weekly health information, suggestions on leading a healthy life -- by e-mail, an aqua-colored silicone wristband that says, "Shape Up Rhode Island," and eligibility for weekly prizes from sponsors and for the grand prize for winning teams. The competition runs from March 6 through June 21.

The registration fees go to operate the program (it has two part-time employees) and to benefit three charities, the Providence Community Health Centers, the city's neighborhood health system; Adopt a Doctor, which helps support poorly-paid doctors in Third World countries; and the GAIA Vaccine Foundation, which was organized at Brown and is working to find a vaccine for AIDS.

The program has attracted some big names -- the co-chairs include U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, state House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox, Dr. Joseph Amaral, president of Rhode Island Hospital, and Karen Adams, news anchor at WPRI Channel 12.

Obesity contributes to many health problems, notably heart attacks, strokes, high-blood pressure, cancer and diabetes. Kumar, who is from Hartford and attended Brown as an undergraduate, said "This is one of the few medical problems where we have the cure": getting exercise, losing weight and eating more fruits and vegetables.

Ray Rickman, a former state representative who works for the nonprofit Omni Development Corp., is helping run the program. He has a personal reason -- a fainting spell that warned he was close to diabetes.

"Obesity is killing us," he said. "It literally is killing us."

Shape Up has worked in other states, Kumar said. He said that Iowa's version started in 2002, and that in 2005, participants "lost 95,000 pounds and ran 4.6 million miles."

Making it happen has delicate aspects, however. Rickman said he suggested to somebody he knows -- "an executive" whose name he would not reveal -- that the man form a team with the people in his office.

"Absolutely not," the executive said. Rickman asked why.

"I'm frightened to death what they'll think," the executive explained. About a dozen and a half women work in the office. "They'll think I think they're fat, and I won't do it."

"It's a touchy subject," Kumar reflected.

blndis@projo.com / (401) 277-7487