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The Netherlands Gets Dancing for World Record in Call for Action Against Obesity

Nederlands Instituut voor Sport en Bewegen
2006-11-10 15:10 4383

BENNEKOM, Netherlands, Nov. 13 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- On Thursday 16

November at 11:15 a.m. more than 200,000 Dutch people will be dancing

simultaneously for five minutes as part of the ‘Get the Netherlands

Dancing’ campaign, an initiative by the Dutch Institute for Sport and

Exercise (NISB). The aim of the campaign is to call attention to exercise as

a resource in the fight against obesity. An important part of the campaign is

to break the current Guinness world record for simultaneous dancing. At the

moment it is held by Canada, where 196,569 people danced the hokey cokey

simultaneously on 9 April 2002.

Get the Netherlands Dancing?

More than a thousand organizations all over the country are taking part,

from kindergartens to schools, from rehabilitation centers to health centers,

to wheelchair dancers, students, government employees, police and

firefighters. In many city halls there will be dancing with the mayor. These

tens of thousands of Dutch people will be dancing the same dance, to the

track ‘What a Feeling’ by the Hughes Corporation.

‘Get the Netherlands Dancing’ will kick off on 16 November in the city

hall of the government city, The Hague. Various members of the lower house of

Parliament, CEOs of companies and members of leading social organizations

will be joining in the dancing. Afterwards they will be debating how exercise

can put a stop to the growing problem of obesity.

Obesity in Europe and the Netherlands

One in four children in the European Union is overweight. This number is

growing year on year by around 400,000. Although not all European countries

record the number of their overweight or obese citizens, the European

Commission estimates that over 200 million adults in the EU may be overweight

(source: International Obesity Task Force, 2006).

In the Netherlands 13% of children and young people (aged 0-21) are

overweight. For adults the figure is 40%, 10% of whom are battling a serious

weight problem. If the current trend continues, in 2015 an estimated 15 to

20% of Dutch adults will be obese (source: Dutch Obesity Forum).

Exercise Standard

‘Get the Netherlands Dancing’ is part of the ‘30 Minutes Exercise’

campaign, run by the Dutch Institute for Sport and Movement (NISB) on behalf

of the Ministry for Health, Well-Being and Sport. The NISB wants to encourage

Dutch people to exercise for half an hour at least five days a week. For

children and young people the Dutch Exercise Health Standard is an hour a day.

For more information visit http://www.heelnederlanddanst.nl (in Dutch)

/NOTE TO EDITORS: Copyright-free photos (high resolution) available at:

http://www.heelnederlanddanst.nl /

Source: Nederlands Instituut voor Sport en Bewegen
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