This Tulsa

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK — Mayor Mick Cornett of Oklahoma City, our state’s beautiful capital has decided to personally endorse a city-wide campaign to motivate his peers and city’s citizens to lose 1 million pounds in 2008. Cornett, like the rest of us, believe that losing weight would definitely not be supported by the variety and notoriously available fast-food chains in his city. However, it seems as though one Yum Brand Food’s company thought differently.

Taco Bell, an international fast-food dining franchise has teamed up with Cornett and the city of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to officially launch the campaign. Taco Bell recently launched their Fresco Menu, a menu containing a variety of low-fat and reduced-fat items. The menu launched at most Taco Bell locations in December and seems to be performing quite well.

The initial idea for the campaign to lose 1 million pounds began after officials with Irvine, California based Taco Bell learned of Oklahoma City’s Major Mick Cornett’s initiative. The officials contacted Cornett, informing him about the new menu items being launched in 42 of his Oklahoma City franchise locations. The stores in Oklahoma City serve an estimated 35,000 customers each day.

Now, Thistulsa.com’s staff are not exactly mathematicians, but we know 35,000 x 350 (giving a few days off for holidays, etc) = 12 million plus people each year! That is 12 million people a year eating at Oklahoma City’s Taco Bell locations alone! Not sure about you, but that’s a whole lot of Tacos. Cornett said it best:

“You start adding that up, and that’s a million people a month,” Cornett said. “There’s no sense trying to fight back. You’ve got to work with them.”

President Greg Creed of Taco Bell met with Cornett for lunch, of course — at a Taco Bell in Oklahoma City. The store had life-size corrugated fiber-board cutouts of Cornett stating, “You can’t lose 1 million pounds by yourself.” Creed made mentions as to why they were interested in the Oklahoma City Mayor’s project, but it was a lot of words we couldn’t keep up with.

Basically, it has been proven that individuals, especially those of us, you, or everyone for that matter — who eat fast-foot; or in technical Creed terms, “use behavior surrounding their chosen eats,” cannot exactly change their behavior surrounding what they eat. However, everyone has the goal of not gaining unwanted wait. True that Mr. Creed!

Obviously, people don’t want to gain a bunch of weight because then they have to fit the gym, cardio, and a diet into their life style. If you’re telling me we can continue to bring Taco Bell to the office and devour it like a bunch of prehistoric herbivorous dinosaurs at a all green buffet; we’re in!

All in all, with over 15% of the total Taco Bell sales now being from the Fresco menu, it just makes sense. Don’t fight a fight you can’t win — but you can totally join in and support fast-food, just healthier menu items. Returning to our original equation, 15% of 12 million people isn’t that bad of a number either; we didn’t really do the math — but we know its decent figures.

So, if you’re going to join in on the Oklahoma City 1 Million Pounds Lost by 2008, eat some Fresco items from Taco Bell! It can’t hurt right? For those of us in Tulsa, why not join in too. Maybe we can get Kathy Taylor to hook us up with some publicity from Taco Bueno.