Get Healthy Connecticut has issued a challenge for citizens of New Haven to collectively lose 375,000 pounds over the next two years. The number was chosen to reflect the city’s age: 375. It’s common to worry about one’s weight when one has reached a certain age.

But that magic number of 375 might explain why there’s a particularly troublesome obesity epidemic in some of the Midwestern United States. Those cities are way younger than ours—175, 200 years tops. Plus, as I’ve always noticed when I’ve traveled out that way, they have wider sidewalks.

That’s clearly the problem: less incentive.

To accept Get Healthy Connecticut’s “Healthy Eating Pledge,” go here.