Fit For TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser

 

So if you haven't checked out the behind-the-scenes Biggest Loser documentary on Netflix, I'd say it's worth a watch.

Bottom line: Even though the 3-part series gives the people behind Biggest Loser every chance to do their best to defend themselves and their mission, you probably aren't going to end up feeling too many warm-fuzzies over the supposed "let's help out the poor fatties" premise.

But along with the not-surprising aspects (still fascinating) there were some genuine surprises as well!

 

Some Not-So-Surprising Highlights of Fit For TV:

1. Abuse and mistreatment! And they didn't have to dig deep to find it. As you may recall, it was happening right in front of us in every episode: the tirades, the humiliation, the tears, the exhaustion, the insults, the temptations, the barfing. We get more details about what contestants went through, and it's ugly, but then torturing fat people always seemed to be viewes as a feature, not a bug, of the show.

2. The fact that most contestants gained a bunch of weight back, and some ended up weighting more than when they started. Because of course they did! We all knew that exercising practically every waking hour and starving yourself is not sustainable.

3. The show was all about making money, not helping people. Well duh, welcome to capitalism! Still, some of the details of the decisions that were made may make your blood boil. And the lame efforts of those behind it to pretend they were at the same time being ethical is equal parts amusing and nauseating. I mean sure, there is something very inspiring about seeing people meet their fitness and weight loss goals! So much so that I made my poor AI research assistant, Chatty, gain a bunch of weight and then lose it again just because I could.

Way to go, Chatty!

But knowing full well that sudden dramatic weight loss is unhealthy and that the vast majority of people can't sustain it, ratings and money, not healthy inspiration, were clearly the real goals. 

Second Biggest Surprise for Me

Bob was such a dick! Here's where I have to confess I didn't watch the show much, because somehow in my mind Jillian (who doesn't appear in the documentary) was the evil drill sergeant and Bob was the nice guy. Uh, not so much, it appears. His attempts to defend himself and his role come off as sniveling, self-serving, prissy, condescending, and generally contemptible. I wanted to slap him. Or maybe it's just me, this is one of those times I'd really like to hear what others thought.

Biggest Surprise for Me

Turns out I was a complicit Biggest Loser product-whore! As a health blogger during the height of its popularity, I thought the premise was horrible. I rarely watched the show, but I checked in often enough to watch the finales and I knew full well what it was all about. So as soon as we finished watching the Fit for Life documentary, I went scurrying to the Cranky Fitness archives to find all the posts I surely must have written vigorously condemning The Biggest Loser and all it stood for.

Well, to quote Gomer Pyle: Surprise, Surprise! (And if you are of a certain age, you can hear Jim Neighbor's loopy exclamation in your head right now, clear as a bell, am I right?)

So yes, there is a Biggest Loser post on Cranky Fitness pointing out all that is wrong with it, but it is written not by me, but by my co-blogger at the time, The Merry. (A lovely woman whom I've lost track of, damn it! I hope she finds her way back.)

Meanwhile, what was I doing? Snuggling up to the notorious Jillian Michaels! (And now I'm discovering she's turned into a MAGA-adjacent Trump voter, sheesh). I tried her 30-Day Shred video, and then wrote three posts about a fitness arm band she was hawking in order to host a giveaway and get my own for free. Well, the armband crapped out on me a few months later. Served me right.

 So Jillian... Was I good today?

Yes, Crabby... You were very good!

 

(Ok, so buried in the 30-day shred video is a bit of a rant about Biggest Loser and my ambivalent feelings about Jillian, but it didn't keep me from flirting shamelessly with her.)

 

So the fact remains: I suck as much as anyone.

 

Some Unanswered Questions 

So a small follow-up study of Biggest Loser contestants  found that almost all of them gained substantial weight back after six years, and that their metabolisms were permanently fucked up. (Ok, so "metabolic adaptation" may be the more technical term for fucked up). It became nearly impossible for them to keep from gaining the weight back.

However, in the documentary some contestants were still noticeably slimmer than they started out, so many years later.

So, how did they do it? What is the secret to dramatic, lasting weight loss?  At least one credited the new generation of weight-loss drugs (the subject of a future post, I'm thinking). But was it true for all of them? It seems like there are inspirational health journeys out there, but those, I guess, are not the kind that it's easy to make money off of.

Anybody out there watch The Biggest Loser or the recent documentary? Thoughts?