Parker column: The skinny on America's diet mayor

OKLAHOMA CITY — If anyone still doubts the correlation between obese America and our fast-food culture, consider Okla-homa City, where the mayor has asked residents to join him on a diet.

The city best known to many Americans as the site of Timothy McVeigh's horrific act of terrorism in 1995 is also the fast-food axis of the nation and the eighth fattest, with an obesity rate of 25 percent.

Mayor Mick Cornett is hoping to change that. On New Year's Eve, he challenged citizens to lose 1 million pounds and launched an interactive Web site where people can sign on and track their weight loss (thiscityisgoingonadiet.com).

As of this writing, 14,688 dieters, including interlopers from 40 countries, have lost 27,153 pounds, or about 13.5 tons.

Sitting in his office in downtown Oklahoma City, Cornett looks more like a GQ model — or like the news anchor he was until 1999.

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