Spring Break
Former UConn basketball player campaigns for teen fitness
Allison Lex
Issue date: 3/19/09 Section: News
This season, former UConn women's basketball star Diana Taurasi is donning a new uniform: a milk mustache.
Taurasi's "Body by Milk" ad was released at the Feb. 12 NBA All-Star game in Phoenix during an event intending to jumpstart a new fitness program aimed at American teenagers called Get Fit by Finals.
Get Fit by Finals encourages teens to drink three glasses of low-fat or fat-free milk and to exercise for a minimum of one hour per day in an effort to combat current trends of rising adolescent obesity, according to a press release on the program's Web site.
The program offers high school students the opportunity to track their performance in fulfilling both personal and federal physical fitness goals. It also provides advice from NBA and WNBA players as well as trainers on the best ways to remain physically fit. The program, expected to last one semester, will end by the NBA Finals in June.
Get Fit by Finals is a partnership between the NBA's fitness-based health program, NBA FIT, and Body by Milk's "Got Milk?" campaign. Taurasi, now a guard for the Phoenix Mercury, and Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets are the celebrity faces of the program.
Players from the NBA and WNBA plan to visit 25 high schools around the country to promote the program in the upcoming months, according to Laura Wilson, account executive of Weber Shandwick, the public relations firm representing Get Fit by Finals and releasing Taurasi's milk mustache ad.
Wilson said the organization is grateful for Taurasi's support.
"We think that Diana is a great representative for teens across the country and will be a great influence," Wilson said. "We're thrilled to have partnered with her."
While at UConn, Taurasi led the women's basketball team to the national championships three years in a row. She graduated from the university in 2004.
-ALLISON LEX
Taurasi's "Body by Milk" ad was released at the Feb. 12 NBA All-Star game in Phoenix during an event intending to jumpstart a new fitness program aimed at American teenagers called Get Fit by Finals.
Get Fit by Finals encourages teens to drink three glasses of low-fat or fat-free milk and to exercise for a minimum of one hour per day in an effort to combat current trends of rising adolescent obesity, according to a press release on the program's Web site.
The program offers high school students the opportunity to track their performance in fulfilling both personal and federal physical fitness goals. It also provides advice from NBA and WNBA players as well as trainers on the best ways to remain physically fit. The program, expected to last one semester, will end by the NBA Finals in June.
Get Fit by Finals is a partnership between the NBA's fitness-based health program, NBA FIT, and Body by Milk's "Got Milk?" campaign. Taurasi, now a guard for the Phoenix Mercury, and Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets are the celebrity faces of the program.
Players from the NBA and WNBA plan to visit 25 high schools around the country to promote the program in the upcoming months, according to Laura Wilson, account executive of Weber Shandwick, the public relations firm representing Get Fit by Finals and releasing Taurasi's milk mustache ad.
Wilson said the organization is grateful for Taurasi's support.
"We think that Diana is a great representative for teens across the country and will be a great influence," Wilson said. "We're thrilled to have partnered with her."
While at UConn, Taurasi led the women's basketball team to the national championships three years in a row. She graduated from the university in 2004.
-ALLISON LEX
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