First lady leads jumping jacks

WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- U.S. first lady Michelle Obama Tuesday led a coordinated worldwide effort to set a world record for the most people doing jumping jacks during a 24-hour period.

Obama assembled a crowd of elementary and middle school children on the White House south lawn for the exercise event that was monitored by Guinness Book of World Records.

She said that while as first lady she gets to do "a lot of cool things," the big jumping jack event "is really exciting."

"I never thought in my entire life that I would be here today to break a Guinness World Record. Woohoo!" she exclaimed.

Between 3 p.m. Tuesday and 3 p.m. Wednesday, children and adults around the world were to do jumping jacks for 1 minute. More than 20,000 people were needed to set a new mark.

The record-breaking attempt, organized with help from National Geographic Kids magazine, was part of Obama's "Let's Move" initiative to get American children to eat healthy foods and be more physically active.

"And what we're going to show people today is that moving is fun, right?" she said. "You can do it just dancing around in your back yard. You can get moving if you're walking your dog. Or you can get moving doing some jumping jacks, right?"