‘The Biggest Loser’ had been taken

Forget the Big Aristotle. Now he’s the Big Jenny Craig.

While Kobe Bryant is spending his summer vacation trying to get traded, ex-Laker Shaquille O’Neal is busy promoting the effort to reduce childhood obesity with an upcoming ABC reality show, “Shaq’s Big Challenge.”

O’Neal, who said he was no longer a pitchman for Burger King, worked with six youngsters ages 11 to 14 who weighed from 182 to 285 pounds. And he blames childhood obesity more on inactivity than fast food. Only 6% of schools have mandatory physical education classes, O’Neal noted, down from 80% when he was growing up.

“We live in a society now where it’s easy to eat a bag of chips or watch TV, easy to eat a bag of chips and play with your PlayStation,” O’Neal said. “It’s easy to eat a bag of doughnuts and just sit down and not do anything. But if you’re going to put wrong foods in your body, and you’re active, then, you know, most of the time you can overcome what you put in your body.”

Still, an Orlando Sentinel blogger did some math: At 7 feet 1 and 335 pounds, O’Neal is obese by at least one standard, with a body-mass index of 32.6. (A BMI 30 or higher is considered obese.) By another measure, O’Neal is more impressive. He said his body fat is below 14%.

“I’ve been a freak of nature when it comes to basketball,” he said. “They’ve never seen a specimen of my sort....”

Nope. There’s definitely only one Shaq.

Trivia time

This week, sprinter Bryshon Nellum of Long Beach Poly High was named the Gatorade national boys’ track and field athlete of the year.

What Los Angeles-area sprinter won the girls’ award in 2003?

Best left ignored

Like the rest of us, Jay Leno can’t resist an easy mark, needling Kobe in his “Tonight Show” monologue Thursday: “Guess you’ve heard by now, the bad news is there’s a video of Kobe Bryant trashing his fellow Lakers. The good news? This is the first evidence that Kobe’s even aware there’s other members on the team.”

Hail, hail, Internet U

The hiring of Reggie Theus as coach of the Sacramento Kings after two seasons at New Mexico State seemingly puts an end to the dream of coaching at his alma mater....

No, no, not Nevada Las Vegas. He left there without graduating, later earning his degree from California Coast University, a distance-education institution based in Orange County.

At least if California Coast had a team, the basketball players wouldn’t be the only ones who couldn’t find their way to a classroom.

Mop-up time

A Brigham Young track standout was arrested this month after getting out of his car and striking a pedestrian with a mop, police said.

The pedestrian had been pushing a bucket with mops in it across the street when he and Kyle Perry got into an argument after Perry’s vehicle came close to him.

“Angry words were exchanged,” Provo Police Capt. Cliff Argyle told the Associated Press. “Mr. Perry exited his vehicle and grabbed a mop out of the pedestrian’s mop bucket and started to strike the pedestrian.

“The pedestrian grabbed another mop and used it to defend himself. Eventually the pedestrian was shoved over a planter box and fell onto his back.”

A BYU coach said he doesn’t believe Perry was at fault.

Sure, maybe the charges are all wet.

Trivia answer

Allyson Felix, then a senior at North Hills Los Angeles Baptist High. A year later, Felix won the silver medal in the 200 meters at the Athens Olympics.

And finally

Lional Dalton, a 315-pound defensive lineman, participated in a broadcasting camp hosted by the NFL and the NFL Players Assn. this week to help prepare players for possible careers after football. He thinks he’ll stick to radio.

“I’m a huge sweater,” he said. “It’s always hot onstage.”

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robyn.norwood@latimes.com