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Move! The Great American Get Active Challenge
After a long winter, spring is finally in full swing! The robins are chirping and the days are getting longer. There’s no better time to Get Active than with the Great American Health Challenge on May 15. You can take action and make a commitment to reduce your cancer risk by taking the challenge to be physically active for at least 30 minutes a day, five or more days per week.

Obesity, physical inactivity, and poor nutrition are major risk factors for cancer, second only to tobacco use. The Great American Health Challenge is the American Cancer Society’s comprehensive prevention and early detection campaign dedicated to encouraging people to take control of their health by adopting healthy lifestyle behaviors that reduce cancer risk. The year-long campaign is divided into four areas important to wellbeing: check, move, nourish, and quit. Check what screenings are right for you and get them done, move more by increasing physical activity, nourish yourself by adopting healthy eating habits, and quit smoking...all with the help of your American Cancer Society.

The Great American Get Active Challenge is the "move" component of the Health Challenge. It offers a 10-week online physical activity program that helps people set goals and maintain an active lifestyle. "We can take comfort in the fact that we are able to take some degree of control over our lives, improve our health, and give our best effort to staying active, mobile, and alive," said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, ACS Deputy Chief Medical Officer.

Not only does the Get Active Challenge help motivate people to adopt physical activity as a lifestyle behavior, the web site also offers unique tools and resources to help people achieve their goals in a fun and enjoyable way. Here are some of the online tools available:

• The Virtual Trainer: Go online and meet with the Society’s virtual trainer for tips, tools, and resources to assist you in maintaining a physically active lifestyle.
• Health Messaging Assistant: Sign up and manage your subscription to weekly e-mail messages with information to help you reduce your risk for cancer.
• Staying Active: Find out ways to fit fitness into your routine, ideas for raising active kids, ways to make exercise work for you by tailoring your program with activities that are right for you, and to stay motivated.
• Exercise and Nutrition Tools: You can take a nutrition and activity quiz to see if your lifestyle matches ACS guidelines, calculate your daily calorie needs, and find out how many calories are burned during a workout or daily activity.
• Create A Healthy Community: Find ideas to use in your community to create a healthy environment, access to healthy foods, and safe places for everyone to be active.

Visit www.cancer.org/greatamericans to join your American Cancer Society in the Get Active Challenge, and take action in reducing your risk of cancer.

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