Margaret Kavanaugh of Baxter was the grand prize winner of a $2,000 travel voucher in Cuyuna Regional Medical Center and Hubbard Radio's March the Mississippi Community Health Challenge. The 277 adults participating met their goal in the second week of the challenge and moved a total of 27,913 nukes ub 12 weeks. Fifty youth participants were active for 1,144 miles.
In March, the challenge was launched to give residents of Crow Wing County extra motivation to start exercising or to keep exercising and hopefully continue the activity as part of a healthy lifestyle commitment. Participants were asked to follow the Mississippi River State Trail from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico and back, a total of 4,700 miles. The challenge was based on exercising the collective number of miles to reach a community goal.
CRMC developed the challenge as part of its Community Health Needs Assessment strategies to address the area’s health needs and identified issues. Research shows 64 percent of adults in Crow Wing County are not meeting recommended physical activity and 66 percent of them are overweight or obese. Another 8 to 30 percent of students are not physically active at least five of seven days a week and 7 to 14 percent of them describe themselves as overweight or obese.