On one level, the Healthy State House Challenge has all the symptoms of being just another public-relations stunt – well-padded legislators from both parties filled the Hall of Flags at noon last Thursday, the governor was there with his team of paunchy independents, all were weighed in, adipose-oriented wisecracks were served up, pledges to eat right and to get some exercise were made.

On another, more substantial, level, the challenge is the right stunt at the right time. No doubt some lawmakers already have broken their pledges, some probably didn’t even make it through the day, but the event underscored an undeniable and crucially important point – Maine is becoming a notoriously unhealthy state.

Maine’s smoking and obesity rates are well above the national average. In its “Healthy Maine 2000” review of the past decade, the Maine Bureau of Health notes that just four diseases – cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic lung disease and diabetes – cause three-fourths of all deaths in Maine and one-third of its disabilities. Most cases of the four diseases are caused or largely attributable to smoking, lack of physical activity and poor eating habits, and thus are preventable.

Beyond the human cost, the financial burden is crushing a state already struggling with high tax burden and low wages; since the business community now ranks health-care costs as its number-one concern, Maine’s soaring costs can only make it an increasingly unattractive place for business and the struggle will worsen.

The lawmakers behind the challenge deserve much credit, first for stepping on scales in public and second for getting good advice from health-care professionals – some on hand at the kickoff – on how to conduct this campaign. Rather than talk about making enormous sacrifices, of giving up favorite foods and of sweating for hours in the gym, the theme was moderation in both diet and exercise, sensible choices, realistic goals and sustainable changes. With today’s sedentary lifestyle a common affliction, it is time, as Rep. Glenys Lovett punned, for lawmakers to “walk the walk.”

The wisdom of the moderation approach was emphasized by the coincidental release Thursday of a new Centers for Disease Control study: Despite a decade seemingly devoted to fad diets, fat-free foods and expensive home-exercise equipment, Americans ended the ’90s in no better shape than they started it.

In particular, the CDC found no measurable improvement whatsoever in physical activity levels during the past 10 years, with just one in four American adults exercising enough and 30 percent exercising not at all. And the CDC’s definition of “enough” is quite modest – a brisk 20-minute walk five times a week. That’s about twice around the block, whether it’s the State House or your house.