On Thursday, July 19, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz welcomed Tony-winning and Emmy-nominated entertainer Ben Vereen (performing at 54 Below, July 10-21; www.54below.com), the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to a day of events at Borough Hall as part of the 2012 “Lighten Up Brooklyn” campaign, an anti-obesity and healthy lifestyle initiative launched by BP Markowitz eleven years ago. Participants included the Mark Morris Dance Center, Body Sculpt of New York, BOOTCAMP Aerobics by Gwen Ro, Shape Up NYC, the Dodge YMCA, Sessions by Sara, and Raizes do Brasil Capoeira Brooklyn.

“Here in Brooklyn, we’ve got so much to be proud of, but we also have some of the highest rates of obesity in the city,” said BP Markowitz. “In neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy. Brownsville, Crown Heights and East New York, roughly one in three adults are obese, and Brooklynites in these neighborhoods are nearly twice as likely to have diabetes than the rest of the city, as well as exercising less and smoking more. What’s scarier is that a recent study found that despite all of our health initiatives over the last decade here in New York, our city’s obesity rate grew faster than the national average. These statistics are unacceptable and need to be made a distant memory.”