Ed. Note: This blog was originally posted on www.fitness.gov. To view the full post, click here.

To kick off the New Year, the National Basketball Association (NBA) teamed up with celebrity chefs, community members, and partners to tipoff the 2014 NBA FIT Live Healthy Week. Throughout the week, the NBA family—led by the NBA FIT Team—highlighted the importance of healthy living by being active, eating healthy, and playing together.

During the week, the NBA and its FIT team members generated workout videos, fitness tips and healthy recipes for adults and kids to model healthy, active lifestyles. The NBA also announced that it would partner with Walmart to launch NBA FIT Food, which includes oranges with NBA FIT-branded stickers and bags that are on display at more than 3,600 Walmart stores in the United States.

Additionally, in conjunction with the week’s activities, the NBA joined First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Active Schools (LMAS) program to start a challenge encouraging schools to integrate physical activity into the school day.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, youth need at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity each day. And, since they spend upwards of 7 hours each day in school, this is an optimal environment to ensure students are moving. Understanding the importance of creating active school environments, the NBA is encouraging all schools and students to sign up for Let’s Move! Active Schools.

Let’s Move! Active Schools is a comprehensive program that empowers school champions, such as physical educators, classroom teachers, principals, administrators, and parents, to create active schools that enable all students to get moving and reach their full potential. The NBA has announced that schools that register before March 31^st and enter into the NBA FIT Challenge are eligible to win prizes. School champions can go to www.letsmoveschools.org to learn more.

The NBA and Let’s Move! Active Schools look forward to helping every youth reach his or her full potential. And that’s a winning play in anyone’s playbook.