Enroll now to get Active U!

For those who vowed to get more physically fit in the new year, the University is offering a program to help members of the campus community keep their resolutions throughout 2006 and beyond. Beginning today (Jan. 16) individuals and teams can enroll in Active U, an 8-week physical activity challenge that promises to offer encouragement, support and the opportunity for tangible as well as intangible rewards for participants in a friendly competition.

Wellness Champions (from left) Kathie Wilder, Law School development officer; Coyote Windsong, administrative assistant in the Office of the Vice President for Research; and Grace Wu, grants and contracts administrator for psychiatry in the Medical School, stretch and move during a breakfast to celebrate the upcoming Active U program. The University-wide physical fitness challenge begins Feb. 7. More than 420 people from all three U-M campuses have agreed to serve as wellness champions to encourage participation and provide resources for their units on fitness and prevention of workplace injuries. Active U and a companion ergonomics program are part of the Michigan Healthy Community Initiative. (Photo by Lin Jones, U-M Photo Services)

Members of the campus community who agreed to be leaders and resources for their units during the challenge met in the Michigan League Jan. 11 for a special Breakfast of Wellness Champions to hear details of the Feb. 7-April 3 activity, and receive their call to action. More than 420 volunteers from across the University have agreed to help recruit participants and disseminate important information about living a healthier lifestyle, and some 250 attended the breakfast.

One of them, wellness champion DeBora McIntosh, hopes her 100-pound weight loss in about a year will encourage others in her unit and elsewhere in the University. McIntosh is an accounting clerk for the U-M Hospital Housing Bureau for Seniors.

Through a combination of eating low carbohydrate meals, taking smaller food portions and exercising, McIntosh says she lost the weight that was threatening her health. She was scared into making a lifestyle change by her physician who said if she didn't take action to lose weight she likely would end up in a wheelchair because of her deteriorating knees.

"I like to move and travel, so I said 'This can't happen,'" McIntosh said. "I want to help other people improve their overall health and well-being. This is a chance to improve your life. Once you improve your health, of course, you improve your life."

Footprints that will appear in several campus buildings will remind faculty, staff and students to get moving for better health.

Jeanette Turner has a similar reason for agreeing to be a co-leader for her unit, the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning. Turner, whose title is instructional learning intermediate, wants to lose weight and become fit and hopes by volunteering to be a leader she'll accomplish these personal goals as she encourages others to be involved. Turner says she is up to the challenge and hopes to motivate people in her unit to get into the competitive spirit.

"As a team we can do it. We can win," she said. And even if we don't get a prize, we win for ourselves."

President Mary Sue Coleman, who attested to having a very competitive spirit, praised the champions for leading the effort.

"None of this is going to happen without people in the units," Coleman said, adding that despite her fit appearance she too struggles.

"I have created rules for myself," Coleman said about the many times she has to make choices in the numerous meetings she attends where food is served. The president also exercises regularly but admitted it is difficult.

"It's so easy not to do anything—not to exercise. Ten thousand steps is a lot of steps," she declared in reference to the goal proposed by the U.S. Government for encouraging increased physical activity through walking. "It'll be fun. It'll be interesting."

In the end, Coleman said the goal is to have a program that can become a model for the state and nation—a sentiment echoed by Laurita Thomas, associate vice president for human resources, who also shared her own personal triumph of having lost 140 pounds.

"You're here to take part in a history-making event for the University of Michigan," Thomas said. "I can't think of anything more unifying, more significant, more inclusive. Being healthy touches each and every one of us."

Those interested in the Active U physical activity challenge can enroll at Mhealthy.umich.edu. Community members who do not have regular access to a computer or who want more details about the competition before enrolling may attend one several Active U information sessions, which are scheduled as follows:

• Jan. 17, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Hospital, Health and Wellness Resource Center, UHC223

• Jan. 18, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Pierpont Commons, Piano Lounge Lobby

• Jan. 19, 6-8 a.m., Hospital, Health and Wellness Resource Center, UHC223

• Jan. 19, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Michigan Union, Sophia Jones Room

• Jan. 23, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Mason Hall, Room 1427

• Jan. 24, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., East Ann Arbor Health Center, Health Education Resource Center

• Feb. 1, 6-8 a.m., Hoover Plant Building, 326 E. Hoover, Room 1306A

• Feb. 1, 8-10 p.m., Hospital, Health and Wellness Resource Center, UHC223

Once registered, participants will be able to keep track of the minutes they spend on a favorite form of exercise in a special Web database that also can help track weight loss and other measures of fitness. The information is confidential: only the total minutes of exercise recorded by the team or individual, if not part of a team, is reported.