I heard quite a sobering fact last night on TV: more American children die every year from obesity-related illnesses than guns. In other words, it's not guns in schools that's killing our kids; it's the vending machines, corndogs in the cafeteria, fast food, and lack of parenting that's killing them.
Shaquille O'Neal, the 7 foot-tall star basketball player for the Miami Heat, is trying to do something about this. Along with his personal trainer and high-school basketball coach and mentor, Shaq designed a program for six overweight middle-schoolers in Florida and then invited the cameras in to follow their progress, resulting in the ABC summer series "Shaq's Big Challenge". I've only watched one episode, but it seems to me like Shaq actually cares about the health and well-being of these kids - he even visits their homes and families to get in the parents' faces, challenging them to take responsibility for their children's health.
The show is cut/edited really well; I even found myself getting choked up once or twice. Tune your TiVo or DVR to record it next Tuesday night on ABC at 9/8c - it might open your eyes to some of the challenges your children are facing in the fight for their lives.
We don't either, Kat - we know too many people who have EVERY evening spoken for with all their various shows they've just GOT to watch. However, this one was recommended to us and so we thought we'd watch it once and see what we thought. Definitely interesting, anyway... we're not going to make it a huge priority to watch every Tuesday night, but it will be interesting to follow the progress of these kids.
Now 24... that's a different story... :)
Posted by: Normal Rockstar | July 14, 2007 at 05:31 AM
We don't usually watch much tv besides sports, but this looks like an interesting show.
Posted by: kat | July 13, 2007 at 11:33 PM