Allamakee County wins Live Healthy Iowa Community Cup Challenge for fourth straight year
Allamakee County was crowned as the champion in this year's Live Healthy Iowa 10-Week Community Cup Challenge once again, marking the fourth consecutive year that the residents of Allamakee County have teamed up to not only boast one of the highest percentages of total population participating in the competition (8.03% of the 13,384 eligible participants in the county), but also the highest percentage (79.06%) of this year's total of 1,075 participants actually completing the entire 10-Week-Challenge. For this year's Community Cup Challenge trophy presentation, staff members of the Live Healthy Iowa and Iowa Sports Foundation organizations sponsoring the Community Cup Challenge made the trip to Waukon with the recognition hardware. Pictured above at that Community Cup Challenge trophy presentation that took place during the Wednesday, May 13 Family Wellness Fair at Veterans Memorial Hospital in Waukon are, left to right, Live Healthy Iowa Client Services Manager Johanna Smith, Waukon Wellness Center Director Jeremy Strub, Veterans Memorial Hospital Administrator Mike Myers and Iowa Sports Foundation Office Manager Anna Ashley. Standard photo by Bob Beach.
Live Healthy Iowa recently announced its 2015 Cup Challenge winners, and for the fourth consecutive year, Allamakee County was crowned the winner of the Community Cup Challenge and remained the only community entity to win the Cup Challenge since its inception four years ago. Staff members from the Live Healthy Iowa and Iowa Sports Foundation organizations sponsoring the Cup Challenges made the trek to Waukon Wednesday, May 13 to present this year's Community Cup trophy (see accompanying photo) at an all too fitting venue, the Family Wellness Fair hosted by Veterans Memorial Hospital in Waukon.
With 17 communities competing in the fourth year of the Community Cup Challenge, a point system based on participation percentage of eligible population and percentage of completion for the entire 10-Week Challenge racked up a championship total of 34 points for Allamakee County, leaving second-place Monona County behind by eight points and pushing Allamakee County to the top of the competition for the fourth consecutive year.
Considering a total population of eligible participants five years of age or older, Allamakee County topped both areas of Community Cup Challenge consideration this year. Allamakee County's event-leading percentage of population participating this year stood at 8.03% of its eligible population total of 13,384 people. And even though that percentage of population has tended to decrease in the past couple years, Allamakee County's number-one ranking in percentage of participants completing the entire 10-Week Challenge experienced another consistent step forward, as 79.06% of this year's 1,075 participants reported activity minutes and/or weight loss results for the entire 10 weeks of the Challenge.
Third-place Grundy County was the only other community achieving a completion percentage over 75% this year, with 75.58% of its just 203 participants completing the entire 10-Week Challenge. Likewise, Montgomery County was the only other participating county achieving a percentage of population number over seven percent with 7.22% of its population of 10,149 participating in this year's Challenge.
Within the overall Allamakee County effort, Veterans Memorial Hospital in Waukon also competed within Live Healthy Iowa's Corporate Cup Challenge of the 10-week competition. Within the Corporate Cup small division of companies with 50-250 employees, the hospital finished tied for seventh out of 114 participating businesses, having 80 of its 185 (43.24%) employees take part and 88.75% of those participants completing the entire 10-week competition.
Likewise, within this year's K-12 School Cup Challenge, the Allamakee Community School District also ranked seventh out of nine participating schools. A full list of 2015 Cup Challenge results and more information about Live Healthy Iowa can be found at www.livehealthyiowa.org.
Live Healthy Iowa, formerly Lighten Up Iowa, was created in 2001 by the Iowa Sports Foundation as a strategic health initiative to address the state’s growing obesity problem. Now completing its fourth year, the Challenge competitions were begun as a means to help reach Iowa Governor Terry Branstad’s goal of making Iowa the healthiest state in the nation within the first five years of the Challenge's existence.
