Why I Dislike 'The Biggest Loser'

I have a confession to make. I sat down tonight and watched a full episode of The Biggest Loser. Why? Because I wished to see this “Big Kev” channel tens incessant ads tantalised me with (much to my chagrin he wasn’t even in this episode so I guess it serves me right). But in watching it, my initial dislike for the show was reaffirmed.

I actually think that the concept could be quite a good one. We are living in a time when over half the population is overweight, where one fifth of children are overweight. Raising the public consciousness about the imperative to lose weight is admirable (if he that is so large he has to travel by waddle can muster the willpower to lose weight so too can you sitting and watching it on the couch; yes, put down that bag of deep fried food and change your ways so that you don’t die before your fortieth birthday).

However, the competitive format of the show undermines this message. As an Australian citizen, I am surrounded by food. As the grandchild of Europeans, I am surrounded by people who can cook extraordinarily well, but categorise ‘lite’ or ‘fat free’ as profanities. I am painfully aware of the results of over-eating. But keeping your weight in check is not something that you do for other people or to win a prize. You do it because you want to lose weight, because you don’t want to get diabetes, not because you honestly believe that if you don’t change, you will die, not because someone else tells you to change. A few years ago I read an interview conducted with the then-spokesperson of Jenny Craig. Her comment was that you have to love yourself enough to change, not hate yourself.

Sending people home who are still – let’s face it – obese, and motivating them to continue training with the promise of potential ‘re-entry’ is not sending a message to the rest of Australia that you should lose weight so that you don’t suffer accompanying health issues. It send the message that you should lose weight to be a winner. Similarly, weight loss at such a dramatic pace as occurs on TBL can be a really difficult think to achieve – placing additional stress on participants to lose the largest amount of weight during a given time or they will quite literally lose, is not conducive to a positive, or more importantly, lasting change. 

 

the contestants take time out to pose like a boy band

Then again, maybe that’s not what TBL is about. Maybe it’s just so that voyeuristic viewers can get their kicks watching fat people mournfully go about the business of being utterly humiliated – look no further than the clothes that the contestants must wear during ‘weigh in’. I was struck (and I’ll admit amused) by the insensitivity of placing life-sized images of these people on the side of buses. It really does bring new meaning to the phrase ‘he’s as a big as the side of a bus’. Look at the opening sequence where all of the individuals stare balefully at the camera, and ask yourself if this is a show that exists to actually ignite a positive difference to the collective Australian waistline, or because we enjoy watching the struggle of people fatter than ourselves.