Obese Children ... or why Shaq need's to talk to the parents
Shaquille O'Neil has a television show on ABC called "Shaq's Big Challenge." Here's the premise:
So on PTI (Pardon the Interruption) one of the guys recommended watching this show not really for the point of it ... but because Shaq is a funny guy. So we watched.
And then today on the radio I heard two talk show hosts talking about how (paraphrasing) the kids didn't take the tasks seriously, they weren't motivated to help themselves, and were really lazy.
Well yeah ... they are under the age of 11 and weigh close to 200 pounds. I see child abuse when I see these kids. One of the mothers admitted that she is too busy to make dinner so they eat fast food every night.
The other thing ... Shaq writes them out a list of routines to do, shows them the gym ... and says go for it.
These are KIDS. They don't know how to do a proper push up. Now maybe in the off camera sections they worked with them ... but these kids have serious health problems now. They need someone to watch them as they run 3 miles. In fact, in the next episode when they do watch the kids, one of the girls passes out and is taken away on an ambulence.
Her parents should be horrified.
It makes me so mad. These kids are almost completely blameless. Here's why:
1 - it's their parents that put food in front of them. And the parent's job to maintain as much of a healthy lifestyle as possible. I know kids eat different things at friends houses. I know - I used to eat all the chips and cookies that my friends had because they were the nice kind. But when at home - parents need to set as good an example as they can.
2 - it's their parents that buy the televisions and the video games. I did not have a television in my room, or a phone, or a video game. Neither did my brother, or my sister. When I went to high school, I got the old computer. An old Apple 286. It had a few games on it. When I started spending too much time in my room ... Dad made me come out of my room. Senior year when I really started spending too much time in my room ... Dad took the door off. If you don't give them access to countless hours of video games and television, they will do something else.
3 - it's the parents that allow them to be coddled. "She's big boned," "You're beautiful just the way you are." It's nice that you care about your child's self-esteem. But this does no good if you are slowly killing your child.
Now -- again, I have no children so take this whole thing for what it's worth. And I told Lewis this last night ... if our kids every start looking the way the kids on television do ... it's "boot camp time" for the whole family.
And the only way what Shaq is doing is going to have any impact is if he gets the parents involved and makes them change their habits too. Most of the parents of these children were overweight themselves, and they are passing their bad habits onto their kids.
Someone had to do it, and who else but an athlete, a father, and an
all-around champion? Shaquille O'Neal, the 7-foot-tall star of the NBA's Miami
Heat, has spent the last year leading the charge against childhood obesity –
first by designing a program for six overweight middle-schoolers in Florida,
then by leading the fight into the school cafeteria, into the gymnasium, and
onto our TV screens.
In talking to the kids who were chosen to participate in the show, Shaq
realized that a child's weight problem can begin at school, where physical
education programs have been cut and cafeteria options are heavy on the soft
drinks and fast food. He took it upon himself to go into the schools to
see what was going on — and he discovered that PE programs had been cut due to
budget issues and that industrial-size cartons of frozen food are the most
affordable way to provide lunch for more than 1,000 students. In visiting the
six kids at home, Shaq also realized that family dynamics, poor eating habits,
and cultural traditions can all compound the problem. It didn't take long
for Shaq to realize that reversing the trends would be a big job.
So on PTI (Pardon the Interruption) one of the guys recommended watching this show not really for the point of it ... but because Shaq is a funny guy. So we watched.
And then today on the radio I heard two talk show hosts talking about how (paraphrasing) the kids didn't take the tasks seriously, they weren't motivated to help themselves, and were really lazy.
Well yeah ... they are under the age of 11 and weigh close to 200 pounds. I see child abuse when I see these kids. One of the mothers admitted that she is too busy to make dinner so they eat fast food every night.
The other thing ... Shaq writes them out a list of routines to do, shows them the gym ... and says go for it.
These are KIDS. They don't know how to do a proper push up. Now maybe in the off camera sections they worked with them ... but these kids have serious health problems now. They need someone to watch them as they run 3 miles. In fact, in the next episode when they do watch the kids, one of the girls passes out and is taken away on an ambulence.
Her parents should be horrified.
It makes me so mad. These kids are almost completely blameless. Here's why:
1 - it's their parents that put food in front of them. And the parent's job to maintain as much of a healthy lifestyle as possible. I know kids eat different things at friends houses. I know - I used to eat all the chips and cookies that my friends had because they were the nice kind. But when at home - parents need to set as good an example as they can.
2 - it's their parents that buy the televisions and the video games. I did not have a television in my room, or a phone, or a video game. Neither did my brother, or my sister. When I went to high school, I got the old computer. An old Apple 286. It had a few games on it. When I started spending too much time in my room ... Dad made me come out of my room. Senior year when I really started spending too much time in my room ... Dad took the door off. If you don't give them access to countless hours of video games and television, they will do something else.
3 - it's the parents that allow them to be coddled. "She's big boned," "You're beautiful just the way you are." It's nice that you care about your child's self-esteem. But this does no good if you are slowly killing your child.
Now -- again, I have no children so take this whole thing for what it's worth. And I told Lewis this last night ... if our kids every start looking the way the kids on television do ... it's "boot camp time" for the whole family.
And the only way what Shaq is doing is going to have any impact is if he gets the parents involved and makes them change their habits too. Most of the parents of these children were overweight themselves, and they are passing their bad habits onto their kids.
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