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

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

November 13, 2006

    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
/ 

    For more information, please contact:

     Juul van Rijn
     Tel:  [phone]
     Cell: [phone]
     
     Nanette Hagedoorn
     Tel:  [phone]

     Jaap de Graaf 
     Tel:  [phone]

SOURCE  Nederlands Instituut voor Sport en Bewegen