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Michelle Obama & Co. smash a world record for jumping jacks

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This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

This post has been corrected. Please see note below for details.

Michelle Obama succeeded in her bid to land in the Guinness World Records book for jumping jacks.

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Obama led hundreds of kids on the South Lawn of the White House on Oct. 11 as part of her Let’s Move initiative to fight childhood obesity. (Perhaps even more impressive, the 400 elementary and middle-schoolers on hand for the initiative that day survived the Al Roker warm-up.) National Geographic Kids organized the event and technically holds the Guinness record.

But the kids on the lawn were just part of the event. Others around the world also participated. The goal: to have as many people as possible doing jumping jacks for one minute.

The first lady announced in a video Monday morning that 300,265 people took part in the effort, a world record for jumping jacks in a 24-hour period, pulverizing the old record of 20,000 participants.

“I want to thank every parent and every teacher who helped out along the way,” the first lady said.

She stressed the “even bigger goal” of childhood fitness, however, saying, “This isn’t only about one day in October.”

[For the record, 8:35 a.m. Dec. 12: An earlier version of this post failed to mention that National Geographic Kids organized the event and holds the Guinness record.]

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