Biggest loser.

Ah yes. The inspirational series the Biggest Loser. Never been a fan. Just not interested, even when some of you have suggested I try to get on the show. sigh... 

But I came across a telling piece about the show recently in the blogosphere with an interview from a previous contestant. Kai Hibbard, Season 3

So just how inspirational would the show be if it was ALL on camera?

some tricks of the Biggest Losers:

 (all of the following are excerpts from Body Love Wellness)

Dehumanizing the contestants

So they put us in hotel rooms and they take your key away so you can’t leave. And you spend a week locked in a hotel room and if you want to go anywhere you have to call a production assistant to take you to get groceries or get dinner or whatever you might need.  You also get loaded up in these vans with other possible contestants and you’re not allowed to speak when you’re in the van, with anybody, and then we had to go through these like doctor’s tests . . . . You get poked and prodded by complete strangers and nobody will tell you a single thing about what’s going on.  And that point was where I really believe that the dehumanization process started, where they start teaching you that because you are overweight you are sub-human and you just start to believe it. Through the whole process, they just keep telling you, over and over, how lucky you are to be there.  You’re being yelled at by people [whose] job is basically to keep the ‘fat people’ in line and you start to believe it.”


it was 6 weeks before we were allowed to get mail from home and our mail was opened and censored.  And it was 8 weeks before we were allowed to speak to anybody on the phone and it was for 5 minutes at a time with a chaperone.”


On then-host Caroline Rhea’s reaction to the blown up “before” pictures located throughout the ranch:

“She walked and she saw the photos of us that were shot deliberately to make us look as poorly as possible hanging up around the house and she lost it.  She lost it on the crew and she demanded that they take them down and that it was humiliating.  [She said that] we were people and should be treated as people.”

 after exercising in 100 degree heat without cold water being offered: Eric, from New York (won my season) lost it at that point and screamed about how we weren’t animals and to please stop treating us like animals and they handled it the way they handled us always, [they] quieted him down, and reminded him how lucky we were to be there, that it was saving his life.“

Misleading you the viewer

A week is not necessarily a week: 

On the meaning of a “week” on the Biggest Loser:

“It varied.  It went from 14 days and I believe that near the end we had one week that was 5 days.”

“Unfortunately, what they’re telling you the contestants are doing and what they actually have the contestants doing are two different things, at least as far as my season goes.  We were working out anywhere between 2 and 5 hours a day, and we were working out severely injured. There’s absolutely no reason to work a 270 pound girl out so hard that she pukes the first time you bring in a gym.  That was entirely for good tv.


“I feel . . . that I have a responsibility to counteract some of the harm that that show does.  Because I took a piece of being that problem, I now own a piece of being the solution. . . . When I have people come to me crying, telling me how hard they work and how they log their food and how they’ve done everything they could and [they ask] ‘Why can’t I lose 12 pounds in a week like you?’ I feel a responsibility to get out there and go, ‘You know what?  Sue me if you want to, NBC, but I’m telling these people, I didn’t lose 12 pounds in a week. It didn’t happen.  It wasn’t a week.  And even when it looks like I lost 12 pounds in a week . . . I was so severely dehydrated that I was completely unhealthy.”

Unhealthy practices

“There was a registered dietician that was supposed to be helping [the contestants at the ranch] as well . . . but every time she tried to give us advice . . . the crew or production would step in and tell us that we were not to listen to anybody except our trainers. 


“The doctor had taken our blood and tested us and sent us a solution, I don’t know exactly what it was but it was salty, so I’m assuming that our electrolytes were off.  And when the trainers found out we were taking it, they told us under no certain terms were we to be taking that, because it would make us retain water and gain weight on the scale and we’d have to go home. The doctors had ordered us to take it and the trainers were like, ‘throw it out, right now.’  


“I didn’t learn how to dehydrate until I got on the ranch. It was every week.  Every single week, this is what a weigh-in would look like: the real weigh-ins were at 10 o’clock in the morning and they were on a cattle scale at the ranch and they weren’t filmed. . . . Now, mind you, it was shot in Simi Valley, so it’s a desert, so it’s hot.  And on the morning of the weigh-in you would get up and you’d put on your underwear, your spandex shorts, and you’d put on sweatpants and then you’d put on a sports bra, a tank top, a long sleeve shirt, and your sweatshirt, a ball cap, and then you’d zip up your sweatshirt, you’d put your hood on and you’d go down to the gym.  [The gym] wasn’t a real gym, it was a temporary structure just for shooting and it didn’t have any air conditioning and you’d shut all the doors and all the windows in the gym.  Then you would work out for two, two and half hours (as long as you could stand it) without any water.


“The trainers tell you.  And it was [trainer] Kim [Lyons]‘s first season, and I remember Kim having a conversation with [trainer] Bob [Harper] where she said, and she said it to her team, ‘You know, look, let’s do this the right way this season — no dehydrating, let’s just do it the healthy way.’  And Bob completely agreed to it.  Then, right before our very first weigh in, Kim came over to us and she said, ‘Guys, I’m really, really, really sorry.  I know that Bob and I agreed not to dehydrate our teams, but I’m watching Bob, and if you look right now, he’s dehydrating his team.  And if you guys don’t dehydrate, you don’t stand a chance.  You’re going to get picked off one by one and have to leave.


her life between the ranch and the finale:


“So I got to a point where I was only eating about 1,000 calories a day and I was working out between 5 and 8 hours a day. . . .  And my hair started to fall out.  I was covered in bruises.  I had dark circles under my eyes.  Not to get too completely graphic, but my period stopped altogether and I was only sleeping 3 hours a night.


 . . my major food groups were water, black coffee and splenda.  I got to the point that when I was nervous or upset I was literally vomiting my food up. And at one point the scale stalled, I was stuck at 163, and my trainer and the producers all ordered me to take a free day. . . .  They said, ‘oh, you’re body needs to be shaken up.’  And I was so afraid of food at that point I went in [to the store], I bought a bag of snicker doodle cookies, and a quart of milk, and a box of ex lax and I ate them all together.  And I knew that I was in trouble. And it was at this point that I was like, ‘Hey, where are those doctors and that psychologist that are supposed to be following up and keeping an eye on me that I kept hearing about?’”


“It gave me a really fun eating disorder that I battle every day, and it also messed up my mental body image because the lighter I got during that T.V. show, the more I hated my body.  And I tell you what, at 144 and at 262 and at 280, I had never hated my body before that show.

Kai on the fantasy of being thin:

“They said that they were very surprised by me as a contestant because, if you watch from the beginning of the season to the end, my personality doesn’t change at all.  And my comment was, ‘Why would it?’  But I guess that 95% of the contestants start off one person and end up a different one at the end.  And it’s because they believe that being thin will make all my dreams come true. [But] your mortgage is the same if you weigh 144 or if you weigh 268.  You’re either happy with your life or you’re not.”

** end of excerpts - thanks again to Body, Love, Wellness

Want an alternative?

I have been talking about this tons, but I didn't breakdown the components of Health at Every Size well enough for people to completely understand the basic premise (because I'm not saying "its so freaking awesome to be fat - join the club" - I am saying its so freaking awesome to be YOU, enjoy being YOU" 

• Identifying Your Set-Point Weight
  Your set-point weight is:
  

  • The weight you maintain when you listen and respond to your body's signals of hunger and fullness.
  • The weight you maintain when you don't fixate on your weight or food habits.
  • The weight you keep returning to between diets.
• How can you become Healthy at Every Size?
  HAES acknowledges that well-being and healthy habits are more important than any number on the scale. Participating is simple:
  1. Accept your size. Love and appreciate the body you have. Self-acceptance empowers you to move on and make positive changes.
  2. Trust yourself. We all have internal systems designed to keep us healthy—and at a healthy weight. Support your body in naturally finding its appropriate weight by honoring its signals of hunger, fullness, and appetite.
  3. Adopt healthy lifestyle habits. Develop and nurture connections with others and look for purpose and meaning in your life. Fulfilling your social, emotional, and spiritual needs restores food to its rightful place as a source of nourishment and pleasure.
  •    Find the joy in moving your body and becoming more physically vital in your everyday life.
  •    Eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full, and seek out pleasurable and satisfying foods.
  •    Tailor your tastes so that you enjoy more nutritious foods, staying mindful that there is plenty of room for less nutritious choices in the context of an overall healthy diet and lifestyle.
  4. Embrace size diversity. Humans come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Open to the beauty found across the spectrum and support others in recognizing their unique attractiveness.
• Healthy Interaction
  The Health at Every Size movement has a strong presence online. Become a part of it :)