Mick Cornett, mayor of Oklahoma City, proposed one very challenging and unusual New Year’s resolution to the city: take a collective stand against obesity and lose 1 million pounds.

Inspired partly by his own wish to lose weight, Mick Cornett transformed a personal struggle into an urban crusade against obesity. Oklahoma City stands as one of the fattest cities in the United States.

The mayor said people need to acknowledge that they do not follow a healthy lifestyle and that exercise and a better-balanced and healthy diet, coupled with self-discipline, are necessary.

“The message of this obesity initiative is that we've got to watch what we eat,” Cornett said Thursday, Dec. 3, as quoted by the Associated Press.

“Exercise is part of it and the city is trying to change into a city that is less sprawling, has more density and is more pedestrian friendly, but you're not really going to take on obesity unless you acknowledge that we eat too much and don't eat the right foods.”

Residents can sign up and keep track of their weight lose on a new website, http://www.thiscityisgoingonadiet.com. The AP reports that more than 2,600 people had registered by Thursday. They have lost more than 300 pounds.

The site offered to help those who wish to accept the mayor’s challenge provides a body mass index calculator, as well as recipes and links to metro-area fitness centers.

Cornett said there are plans to further develop the site so that it includes the opportunity to blog and network with other participants, reports the AP.

“It's always easier if you're doing something hard if you have other people to do it with,” he said.

A survey conducted last year by Men’s Fitness magazine, examining lifestyle factors such as fast-food restaurants per capita and availability of city parks, gyms and bike paths in each city, found that Oklahoma City was at No. 15 on the list of America’s fattest cities.

Cornett added that he wishes to make physical exercise more appealing to residents by increasing the number of bike trails and sidewalks in the city.

The United Health Foundation, a non-profit health advocacy group, collaborated with the American Public Health Association and Partnership for Prevention, the National Center for Health Statistics, the American Medical Association and the Census Bureau last year, to rank states by their health status.

Considering such factors as obesity, infant mortality, cancer death, high school graduation and cardiovascular disease, the researchers found that Vermont, Minnesota, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Connecticut, etc were among the healthiest states, while Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee occupied the opposite end of the list.