To hear Shaq tell it, childhood obesity is a crisis in this country that will kill more kids than guns—and he’s determined to do something about it (he’s giving himself six months). For starters, employing his considerable powers of celebrity and motivation (NBA career aside, he’s father to 6), Shaq pledges to get 6 overweight middle school students into shape. Within the first hour of Shaq’s Big Challenge , we see the term overweight doesn’t pertain to these kids: morbidly obese—as 14-year-old Walter muses, “Morbid, like die,”—applies (to two).

To hear my 9 and 11 year-old (who happened upon my watching the show yesterday), respond, Shaq’s message—that childhood obesity is a life-threatening epidemic—came through loud and clear. These healthy, active kids were terrified.

What shook them most: the parents’ roles in these kids’ health crises. “Did Shaq find the 6 fattest kids in America?” asked my 9-year-old. My kids could not fathom how these sons and daughters got obese. They’d never glimpsed so much fast food, never imagined that kids wouldn’t have so much as tried a vegetable, and never heard of parents who wouldn’t tell their kids to get up from playing video games—average 5 hours a day for 14-year-old, 285 pound Walter—and go outside.

My curiosity about the show had everything to do with how Shaq and ABC television would explain and combat what is obviously the biggest challenge to this generation’s heath. A recent barrage of studies suggests not simply the magnitude of the problem but also chronicles the nearly countless ways childhood obesity is now entrenched in our society: from cutting physical education programs to the fact that kids no longer break a sweat in gym classes, from proliferation of cheap, fast food in poor neighborhoods to lack of affordable, healthier food reaching those same areas, along with the indisputable fact that this generation is more sedentary than ever. According to an article in the Arizona Republic , researchers have found that pressuring kids about weight and eating may foist body image and eating-related issues upon them (damned if you do, damned if you don’t?).

Leave aside the societal, here’s what my kids witnessed in terms of the familial: Kit’s mother is overprotective and doesn’t like her to leave the house. Chris’ Cuban family shares big meals and believes abundance—meal size, body size—signals prosperity. James’ single mom favors convenient food her kids will eat (snacks of popcorn with two entire sticks of butter, fast food meals). None of these parents, obviously, set out to kill their children. While the parents all cop to the fact their kids are overweight, they seem stunned during the first episode to learn of the peril their kids actually face being so heavy, “ticking time bombs” as Dr. Muinos puts it. Now, we don’t know if these kids’ pediatricians have been telling it like it is to them or not (included in a recent spate of articles about childhood obesity was this one: a panel urged pediatricians to use words like ‘overweight’ and ‘obese’ more bluntly to compel parents and kids to get on top of the problem; the American Medical Association refuses to follow the recommendation for fear of stigmatizing kids). Shaq’s Big Challenge is reality television, with its narrative arc meting the tale in bite-sized segments over a series of weeks, not journalism. What we see instantly, though, is that none of these parents have tried—on a meal-by-meal or “let’s take a walk, now” basis—to alter their children’s ways.

With exercise programs in hand, the kids are given the task of going to the Y to work out. Not a couple of days in, they’re slacking off. My 9-year-old asked me why they didn’t try harder and why they’d lie about their efforts. “Remember this year when you were supposed to write 3 sentences and you kept writing 1-word answers?” I asked him. He nodded his head. “You were scared you couldn’t really do it so you just didn’t try. Remember what happened?” He nodded again and recalled, “You helped me.” “Yup, and when you had a little help you started to write longer sentences, and more sentences. That’s what those kids need, someone to help them not be scared to try.”

Shaq asks Dr. Muinos, “Surgery? Diet pills for kids?” The doctor shakes his head. Shaq resolves to personally push them (and hires a trainer). However complicated the problem of childhood obesity is, the solution—person-by-person—is pretty simple: burn more energy, eat less, and eat healthy. It’s not rocket science. Plenty of things that aren’t rocket science are difficult to carry out, including not just loving your kids but doing well by them. And then, ideally and necessarily, society must follow your lead.