The American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery Foundation and the Obesity Action Coalition partnered to create a walk to raise funds for obesity research and education. The second annual Ark-La-Tex Walk from Obesity was held at Betty Virginia Park in Shreveport, LA on Saturday, October 20th.

“We want to build a community of people first and expand the view of obesity,” sponsoring physican George Merriman said. “We want it to be a fundraising walk, but we also want it to be a place for information if they are struggling with obesity themselves.”

Seventy similar walks are held across the nation to fight obesity by the sponsoring organizations. The Ark-La-Tex walk anticipated an even better participant rate this year than last year.

“We started the walk last year and we did well,” said walk chairperson Katy Merriman. “We were awarded sixth-best walk out of 72 cities and we raised more than $24,000 in sponsorship or donations. We had more than 200 people involved and this year we would like to see more.”

Source: The Shreveport Times