Iowans warm up to Winter Games

The Iowa Winter Games are getting underway, and director Jim Hallihan says they’re still growing in popularity.He cites a big basketball-volleyball event coming up January 12 with lots of boys and girls divisions, and says the one-day event is larger than the first year of the winter games. Hallihan says the Winter games will offer a competition anyone can get in on, whether they play a sport or not:Called “Lighten Up, Iowa,” it’s done with sponsors of the Games, encouraging Iowans to eat right, lose weight, and do it in teams they form at work. Hallihan says “Lighten Up Iowa” will begin with all the teams establishing how hefty they are at the start of the competition. They weigh in at Hy-Vee corporate offices January 8 and about 25 teams are already signed up. Hallihan says it’s all in fun, but it’s for a good, healthy cause, too.Teams will get Health Department information on eating right so they can get fit and fight obesity, a problem everywhere. Hallihan says you don’t have to be an athlete to join in the “Lighten Up Iowa” competition. He says 50 percent of adults and 35-percent of kids are obese, so if they’d change lifestyle and lighten up, fight diabetes and heart disease, maybe more would enter the games.