With over 300 students and faculty in attendance, the University of Memphis made its way into The Guinness Book of World Records for having the largest amount of people doing sit-ups in one place for one minute.
Gathered on the Alumni Mall, outside the University Center, participants joined in on a special edition of Midday Moves. As people came through the entrance, they were given a plot number, as in burial plot which told them where to lie. Members of the Alumni Association and the Student Ambassador Board were dressed up in costumes and masks as the theme was "Dying to be Healthy."
“One of our coordinators who works with the Student Ambassadors Board said let’s do something cool, let’s get people out, let's break a world record… and now it has turned into a Halloween extravaganza,” said Holly Snyder, the Assistant Director for the university’s Alumni Association.
Midday Moves is a program of the Memphis Healthy U Initiative. In 2011, then school President Shirley Raines had a committee formed by the School of Public Health, Department of Health and Sports Sciences, Student Health Services, Loewenberg School of Nursing and the Department of Human Resources, producing the initiative. The three main goals are to move, eat healthy and be tobacco free.
Midday Moves takes place in front of the UC every weekday around noon with activities such as Yoga, Zumba, Kickboxing and an Ab Lab. All of that and more is free and open to the public.
“We are all about adding to the student’s experience… and to get them engaged on campus,” Snyder said.