Latest News Local News Man riding across nation to help fight obesity visits Tulsa today
Man riding across nation to help fight obesity visits Tulsa today
by: RICKY MARANON World Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
A Colorado chiropractor is riding his bicycle through Tulsa today as a part of his nationwide cross-country campaign to raise awareness for obesity. 
Scott W. Poindexter, 46, began his trek in San Francisco and will finish his awareness ride in Washington D.C. around August 6.
"I didn't just want to ride across country, but I wanted to do it for a good cause," Poindexter said.
He said the obesity issue is personal to him as a health care professional and as an agricultural-food studies graduate from Oklahoma State University.
"I see it a lot in my family, and hopefully this will get them talking about it," he said. "Your quality of life is greatly decreased when you are overweight or obese."
Poindexter said many people have stopped to talk to him in gas stations, even people who consider themselves obese.
"They only want to talk about childhood obesity, but the truth is, there is a problem with leadership," he said. "Children are looking to adults for the answers, and it is the adults who are the ones who are just as obese."
Poindexter said despite an excessive heat warning issued for the area and heat indexes predicted to be between 108 and 113 degrees, he will ride through Tulsa today and end his ride near Muskogee.
He travels between 60 to 90 miles per day, he said.
Poindexter said he planned his trip intentionally through the southern part of the country.
"Studies show that this is where the problem has hit the hardest, and the more people I can talk to and make aware of the problem and how to solve it is what I intend to do," he said.
After he reaches Muskogee, Poindexter hopes to take I-40 east through Little Rock, Ark., and then head to Memphis, Tenn., before trekking through the Smoky Mountains and up the Appalachian Mountains, ending in Washington D.C.
