This Friday, Lee Field will hold over 1,000 students, four instructors, and an endless playlist of Latin rhythms.
N.C. State Health Promotion has teamed up with the Union Activities Board to host a zumba event in conjunction with the Health Promotion’s “Your Health Sustains You” series. By hosting events from health-related trivias to salsa lessons, the series was created in hopes of reducing stress while promoting healthy lifestyles.
“Students wanted to do something for physical fitness,” Marianne Turnbull, Health Promotion director said. “Then overnight, someone [in Health Promotion] just thought, ‘Why don’t we try a large zumba class?'”
However, this is no average zumba class at the Carmichael Gym. N.C. State Health Promotion and UAB are expecting nearly 1,000 students in hopes of breaking a Guinness World Record, naming the event, “World’s Largest Zumba Class.”
While it sounds like an easy task in a school of 37,000 students, menial steps and piles of paperwork are required of the University to validate the qualifications.
“The Guinness Book of World Records has strict guidelines in setting a new world record. It is not as simple as merely saying that you did it,” James Byars of Student Health Service said. “We have to document everything and I mean everything.”
Documentation from independent media outlets, a witness for every fifty participants and a recruited Zumba expert to oversee the event are just a handful of the many tedious requirements necessary for a possible inclusion in Guinness’ book.
In the planning of such a monumental event, many campus organizations collaborated and pitched in to help N.C. State Health Promotion and UAB in the process. Departments and organizations such as the University’s P.E. Department, Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, the Pre-Health Club, PACK Peers and a few student individuals offered to contribute.
Although large numbers of students have already signed up for the event, N.C. State is not running uncontested for the world’s largest zumba class.
“I wholeheartedly believe that we can beat the current record,” Libby Jones, senior in Psychology and Health Promotion intern, said. “However, we have heard that other universities such as Baylor are attempting the same record immediately after us. We will really need to have a great deal of students, staff, and faculty come out – around 1,200 – if we want to hold on to the record for very long.”
Yet students that have long planned on attending seem hopeful about a possibility of breaking a world record. Daniel Souder, freshman in industrial design, looks forward to campus-wide events and any endorphin-releasing activities to break her academic routines.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the record will be broken,” Souder said. “What better way to relieve stress before exams than an energy boosting experience like our zumba event.I naturally become overwhelmed by final exams and projects, but the Zumba class [will break] up the monotony of schoolwork and studying.”
With a unifying, campus-wide event right before exam week and all-nighters start, aerobic exercise seems to be a good call on behalf of Health Promotion. Aerobic exercises increase production of endorphins while decreasing production of stress hormones – something students get to know very well during the last few weeks of every semester.
“When the deadlines approach and the stress piles high, it is easy to push aside exercise routines,” Souder said. “This event is one way to encourage health during a time when students drink frothy, double shot espressos, snack over delicious bags of chocolate covered pretzels and glue their eyes to text books with the finest print. Instead, students can shake and salsa the stress away.”