The Biggest Loser
promotes being
the biggest loser
So you like watching The Biggest Loser (funny how many different spellings it comes with: bigest loser or biggest looser)? You like watching the Erik Chopin's of this world slog it out? We've had some really interesting discussions in the Mind over Fatter forum about how it makes people struggling with weight loss feel.  Click to join Mindoverfatter Many say they can't bear to watch because of the ongoing public humiliation they experience participants going through. Others say they hate the way it portrays fat people in some of the food challenges. It's a TV program fat people have strong feelings about. I know that as I've sat watching 'The Biggest Loser,' I've experienced the same feelings as people in our forums but I've also felt despair for the multiple erroneous messages the program sends out. 
Weight Loss at all costs
Firstly, all that counts in The Biggest Loser is weight loss. Essentially... who can lose the largest amount in a fairly short space of time. And if you have to practically kill yourself doing that - well that's when you really get applauded.It perpetuates the idea that of there's
no pain there's no gain
which I think is a bunch of baloney.
Moderation is a dirty work. In other words, no price is too big to pay in order to be thin.The other problem I have with The Biggest Loser is that it uses the 'carrot' and 'stick' approach of external reward or punishment. Problem is: the carrot has to get bigger for the reward to mean the same. And I just plain don't believe in the stick approach. If that worked so well, the self-stick that I've heard many dieters use to beat themselves up with, would mean everyone would be thin by now. What's measured and recorded is weight loss. What is rewarded and applauded is the most massive and rapid weight loss. The Biggest Loser perpetuates the same old messages we see everywhere that aren't always helpful. Like you can't lose weight too fast and that's just a bad message in my eyes because mostly that's an unhealthy message that fuels the life of
quick loss weight schemes
Body differences don't count
The Biggest Loser doesn't take natural body differences into account. Dietician, Maya Snijders-Neumann in her newsletter tells the story about 3 hypothetical women taking part in a 'Biggest Loser' type competition. Anna, Beatrice and Candice are the same height, and all three weigh 80kg at the start of the program. Anna's natural, genetically determined normal weight is 55kg. Beatrice's is 64kg, and Candice has a normal weight of 74kg. The scales are tipped in Anna's favour-- her body WANTS to weigh significantly less than it does. The scales are tipped against Candice whose weight is close to what is normal for her. And let's not forget that men have lower percentages of body fat and naturally lose weight a lot faster than women.
The Biggest Loser rewards
the wrong behavior
All three women are sedentary, and have poor eating habits. But when they start, Beatrice and Candice walk regularly, and start eating healthier. Anna, keen to win, starts to dramatically restrict her eating and takes laxatives. And here's where the problem starts: The Biggest Loser rewards are based on results - not on behaviour changes. This means, that just like Anna, anyone motived to get an external reward, contestants will do anything, no matter how unhealthy (from taking laxatives and diuretics, to cutting meals and not drinking before weigh-ins and so on) in order to win. Role models like Erik Chopin on The Biggest Loser, are affecting the lives of millions of viewers, and teaching them what is best in order to 'win'. At the first weekly weigh-inn, Anna has lost an impressive 5kg, Beatrice has lost 2kgs, and Candice has lost only 500g.
Anna is applauded and rewarded - she feels great, her unhealthy behavior is being positively reinforced. Beatrice feels ok. Candice, feels like a failure. She's being 'punished' because her healthier behaviors are being negatively reinforced. It doesn't take long before she starts to think making healthy changes won't get her anywhere. Viewers watching, see the results and learn that changing to more healthy habits doesn't get rapid weight loss results that work as well as unhealthy ones. And in our weight-obsessed culture, there's no prize for guessing which methods they're more likely to perpetuate! As Maya points out: If the right thing had been rewarded, i.e. the behavior, Beatrice and Candice would have been applauded and rewarded and Anna not. If you want ongoing tips and tactics about a weight loss plan that does work, sign up for my FREE monthly Mind over Fatter e.zine and....
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What about being body-wise?
Contestants aren't taught to be
body-wise.
Now, if contestants were taught to tune into their bodies, I wonder what they would have noticed? Given the drastic amount of exercise (and man, it sure doesn't look like it's fun or sustainable without becoming obsessivethey are seen doing, I wonder how many might have bodies that tell them they are
doing too much to soon?
And if the 3 women Maya is talking about were taught to tune into the internal rewards of their behavior (e.g. more energy, sleeping and coping with stress better), rather than waiting for external rewards, they would have had ample positive internal reinforcement to continue with their new healthier choices. Anna, if she'd been tuned in might have learned that she felt hungry a lot of the time and that she was more irritable and snappy than usual and maybe had less energy.
Fast weight loss
doesn't prove a thing
Short term, rapid weight loss doesn't prove a thing.
How many of The Biggest Losers turn out to be much bigger losers than they could ever anticipate when they experience the
rapid fat regain
after when they go back to their normal lives? But us
viewers don't get to see that!
Here's what we don't see: Erik Chopin, the winner of NBC's third season of The Biggest Loser, at 36, weighed in at 407 pounds. He lost 214 pounds—and became the biggest loser to that date!But three years after his victory, Erik was back weighing 315 pounds. As he gained, he admitted he continued to use older photos on his MySpace and Facebook pages and even turned down an offer to appear on The Oprah Show with past Biggest Loser contestants. "People, they don't see me. I can hide," he says. "I inspired so many people; so many people reach out to me. I feel like I let them down." When an external reward is based only on results - there's no real motivation to make actual long term
internal changes.
And if you haven't made the habit and attitude changes necessary - participants won't sustain what they lost.
And in the bigger scheme of things, this means they are the biggest losers because you only have to regain 25% of what you've lost for ALL your improved negative health indicators (like blood pressure and blood sugar levels) to return to
the levels they were at before you lost any weight.
It's just a band-aid
The Biggest loser doesn't address the biggest issue which is what is going on in a contestants life that is keeping them eating.
Weight is usually only a symptom of something else going in in someone's life.
Comfort eating
is a way of coping with negative emotions. Until they find out what is eating them that is keeping them eating - just taking care of the symptoms is like putting a band-aid on a broken arm. When the band-aid comes off the arm will still be broken. And another generation of viewers will leave 'inspired' to do what is unhealthy and unhelpful to them in the long term. Don't get me wrong - exercise is fabulous, it's absolutely the very best way to change your metabolism and the benefits to fitness are fabulous.
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