Challenge

There was a show on last night on ABC called, "Shaq's BIg Challenge," or something like that. In it Shaquille O'Neal takes on the epidemic of childhood obesity. He took six obese-to-morbidly obese kids and challenged them to get fit by offering them and their parents education and access to professionals.

It was right up my alley. But parts of it were hard to watch for me because it dragged up some old painful memories. Especially when the kids found out what their body fat percentage was and that they were obese. I had a very similar experience freshman year of high school. I also saw all the similarities between those kids and how I used to be. Hit close to home. And to be honest I got a little choked up at times.

The good news is that I changed, and those kids, and all obese kids can too. They just have to decide to do it.

In one part of the show one of the kids said he didn't think he was fat. He was so disconnected from reality he thought he was just a big growing boy. Meanwhile he had over 40% body fat. That was me, I was in the 40s the first time I had mine checked.

Another part that was disturbing is how the parents enable these kids to be this way. One mother was crying and saying, "I can't but feel at least part responsible." No kidding! Parents buy the food and set the rules. They are 100% responsible for an morbidly obese 8 year-old (baring any serious medical conditions.)

I'm going to keep watching this show and I encourage you to check it out too. It's inspiring. Maybe we really can turn this thing around. I mean I did it, no reason why every fat kid can't.

Train smart,

RL