Friday, July 20, 2007

The Best Show on Television

When the television is on at our house it is usually sports and news with an occasional cooking show. While watching my favorite sport program (PTI with Wilbon and Kornheiser), I heard mention of a new reality show with NBA mega star Shaquille O’Neal and a group of overweight kids. Shaq selected six overweight middle school students for a special challenge of achieving better physical fitness by losing weight. The show is called Shaq’s Big Challenge and is on ABC Tuesday nights 8/7c.

This is why I think it is the best show on television:

1. Shaquille O’Neal – This guy has proven that his heart is as big as his impressive seven foot plus stature. Shaq takes a semi trailer full of toys into the projects every year at Christmas and plays Shaq O’Claus. If every athlete would use his time and resources like Shaq then the world would be a better place. I live in Dallas and I am a huge Dallas Mavericks fan. Unless He is playing the Mavericks I am pulling for Shaq. I do not know about Shaq’s faith. His mother is a Baptist and his step-father is a Muslim, but there is something about this guy that makes you like him even if you only know him from television.

2. The Positive Message of Encouragement – My favorite kid on this program is Walter. When Shaq visited Walter’s house to sign him up for the program, Walter was playing video games and would not even get out of his seat to answer the door. One of the first tests was to get the gang of obese kids to take the presidential fitness test. None of them passed. When they were asked to run a mile, Walter was still on the track after all the others had finished. Shaq told all of the other kids to go out and get behind Walter and cheer him on to the finish line. When Walter finished he was exhausted but had a huge grin on his face and said, “No one has ever cheered for me for anything in my entire life, it felt good.” Shaq has consistently encouraged Walter and it is so exciting to see his entire personality transforming in front of your eyes.

3. America’s Obesity Problem – Shaq has a passion for the overweight kids in America. The facts are staggering. One out of every six young people is obese, many of them morbidly obese. This is the first generation of young people who because of obesity related problems will not be expected to live as long as their parents. Shaq exposes and offers solutions to the all too often unhealthy school lunches and what is usually a joke of a physical education class at school, if it even exists.

America has an obesity problem. Just this week a John Hopkins study was released that reported that 75% of all Americans will be overweight and 41% will be classified as obese by the year 2015 if we do not change. Shaquille O’Neal is doing something about this problem.