On Friday, the City of Brownsville and the University of Texas School of Public Health will celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Challenge-RGV, a competition that promotes weight loss and healthy eating.
Registration and a weigh-in will take place from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday in the Brownsville Public Library-Main Branch and the Brownsville Public Library-Southmost Branch. The kickoff event will take place from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at Linear Park, located at the corner of 7th Street and Harrison.
Registration is free and participants over 18 will have “free access to Challenge partner local gyms, fitness experts, nutritionists, text-messages and peer support,” according to a news release from the City of Brownsville.
Prizes will be awarded to the individual and groups who lose the most weight. Participants who lose 5 percent or more of their weight will be eligible to enter a raffle to win $1,000.
The challenge lasts four months and consists of health screenings, fitness activities, cooking classes, runs, walks, free exercise classes and nutrition information, according to the news release.
Categories include individual male, individual female, small groups and large groups.
At-Large Commissioner “B” Rose M.Z. Gowen said research by the School of Public Health in Brownsville found a problem with diabetes in the community, which provided a reason to start the competition. The city and school wanted to use the research to help reduce rates of diabetes in Brownsville.
Lisa Mitchell-Bennett, the project manager at the UT School of Public Health in Brownsville, said the institution will provide technical and motivational support throughout the competition.
“Our staff is actually doing the weigh-ins and we do the waist measurements and we keep the data,” Mitchell-Bennet said. “We also have a text-messaging system, so we send out mass motivational text messages.”
Gowen also said that university students are nearby the School of Public Health and can visit if they have questions regarding the challenge.
“Healthy eating and active living is not a difficult concept,” she said. “ Those different choices can really benefit students because it’s important to be fit so that you can learn better, retain information better and be able to enjoy your life with much more energy and vigor.”
Cynthia Hernandez, the communication specialist for the UT School of Public Health in Brownsville, said the process of setting up the challenge starts with finding gyms that want to contribute to the competition.
Hernandez said a motivator for people to participate in the challenge is access to free resources. With the help of local gyms, participants are motivated to take the first step in losing weight.
Mitchell-Bennett said she invites students to participate in the competition.
“They’re part of our community,” she said. “We think that the students are the future leaders and we want to see them at the forefront of these health initiatives because we know that health is important to our economy and it’s important to our community.”
