Gov. Mark Sanford asked everyone in the state to make a new year’s resolution: Be more active.

Sanford — who is more comfortable in a gym suit than a three-piece suit — proposed Wednesday in his State of the State address that South Carolinians join him on a 300-mile bike ride across the state this spring.

“I’ll start out in the mountains, hoping it’s more or less downhill. I’m taking Jenny, the boys, and I’d invite anybody in the South Carolina to join us on that ride.”

He proposes riding across the state on successive Saturdays. If people can’t join him, Sanford challenges them to walk, run or canoe that same distance in the next year.

South Carolina leads the nation in indicators of poor health, from obesity, to diabetes, to heart disease. Exercise will help everyone, Sanford said.

“It’s something you can do. It’ll make a difference in your life. It’ll make a difference in the health care system in South Carolina.”

People in South Carolina and across the nation are less active than they should be, said Teresa Moore, who teaches in the department of exercise science at USC’s Arnold School of Public Health. Part of it is diet; part of it is work. We work on computers, rather than in fields. “We’ve gone from outside jobs to inside jobs.”

Sanford’s challenge is the highest-profile one she can remember hearing.

“Challenges are a good idea,” she said. “Any time somebody has other people involved, they’re not alone. I’d like to see schools and the universities take off on it, and do some of these activities.”