San Francisco students are joining first lady Michelle Obama’s campaign to break the Guinness World Records for the most jumping jacks done in one day.
The worldwide challenge is part of the first lady’s “Let’s Move” campaign designed to create awareness and combat childhood obesity. More than 20,425 people must perform jumping jacks for one minute from noon today through noon Wednesday to break the current world record.
Students from Marin Preparatory Academy in the Castro neighborhood are among the many students across the country participating in the event, sponsored by National Geographic Kids Magazine.
Some 750 students of Roosevelt Middle School in the Inner Richmond neighborhood will be joined by teachers, as well as the school’s principal, to jump together Wednesday morning.
“It’s a really big deal for the kids,” physical education teacher Maureen Hayes said. “It should be fun–and funny.”
Roosevelt students are no stranger to record-setting events, having participated in a 2009 jump rope challenge that set a new world record, Hayes said.
Shortly after the students jump on Wednesday morning, volunteers from the California Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance will be doing jumping jacks on the Golden Gate Bridge to raise awareness for the ambitious fitness campaign.
According to the Center for Disease Control, obesity prevalence among children and adolescents has almost tripled since the 1980s. The CDC found that 17 percent of children and adolescents between the ages or two and 19 years are obese.
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