Remember “the biggest loser”? Docuseries “ fit for tv ” explores the damage that the program made in the name of health
Millions of Americans watched for 18 seasons that people physically pushed their bodies within the limits, ate the least calories as possible and sometimes underwent mortifying challenges to be crowned “the greatest loser”.
It was a discomfort that is worth it with a chance of better health and a new life, many candidates said. But “Fit for TV: the reality of” The Biggest Loser “, a Netflix Docuseries in the first Friday, suggests that the cultural phenomenon was perhaps not healthy for candidates or the country as a whole.
During the creation of the new show, the filmmakers wondered if “the biggest loser” was, in fact, part of an industry promoting health and well-being in the United States, said Skye Borgman, director of docuseries. “Everyone always wants a magic ball that is real. And the thing about magic bullets – they are never real.”
“Fit for TV: The reality of” The Biggest Loser “examines how the very popular show affected competitors and conversations around health. Docuseries also explore the implications of so many viewers ready to look at – and sometimes laugh – people who try to lose weight.
“It was such a huge phenomenon and absolutely thought about and perpetuated some of the really harmful messages around weight and weight loss,” said Dr. Rebecca Pearl, associate professor of clinical psychology and health at the University of Florida.
In a show pretending to transform people’s health, what did the candidates regimes look like?
The men were invited to reduce their calories to 1,500 to 2,000 per day and to women to 1,200 per day, said Dr. Robert Huisenga, a doctor on “the biggest loser”, in the series. But sometimes the coaches may have recommended up to 800 calories per day, he added.
The quantity of exercise was also intense, sometimes covering eight hours a day, said former competitor Danny Cahill in docuseries.
The series has shown extracts from candidates that fell on the floor of a treadmill, many people vomiting in the gymnasium and cases where caffeine pills were used to slow the appetite.
“There is no way that an entertaining show and a health show can exist 100%. … One of them will always take the lead,” said Borgman. “In the case of” the biggest loser “, I feel like the entertainment value of the program from afar the aspects of the health of the show.”
An extreme diet and an exercise regime is associated with significant health risks, Pearl said. Losing too much weight too quickly or not having enough calories can lead to complications from the gallbladder, muscle loss and nutritional deficits, she said. Overcurrent can cause heart problems, dehydration and injuries – which also prevents people from maintaining healthy behavior.
Eating a balanced diet and getting movements in your day is generally good for health, but the punishing approach to food and exercise was presented on “the biggest loser” also worked against long -term health promotion activities, Pearl added.
“A predictor and a recommendation to engage in the long term in physical activity is to find an activity that you appreciate,” she said. “The kind of exhausting and suffering activity that has been shown on this program does not set up someone to build a healthy and positive relationship with physical activity or with their body.”
A theme that may have brought back the viewers to the series was the hope that someone could make a dramatic and lasting change in their body. But a weight loss transformation that resisted the time test was not necessarily the result, even “the biggest loser,” said Borgman.
A 2017 study after 14 candidates in the years that followed “The Biggest Loser” wrapped revealed that many renovated a lot or all the weight they had lost during the program.
The return of the weight is logical, said Dr. Larissa McGarrity, clinical psychologist in physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Utah Health. The degree of caloric restriction and intensity of the exercise was at levels that neither the competitors nor the viewers could implement the house realistically, she said. In addition, the amount of lost weight from week to week was extreme.
Sometimes the participants lost two figures with each weekly weighing. Experts tend to recommend a sustainable weight loss rate of 1 to 2 pounds per week, said McGarrity – adding that the best advice is to use the methods you can follow in the long term.
“The answer is probably:” How can I slowly make changes in my life that help me get into good nutrients to help my body feel good? How can I move around in a way that will allow my body and my mind to feel at best over time? “” She said. “Make too many changes both tends not to go well for most people from a psychological or behavioral point of view.”
Even if viewers at home could implement the rigorous protocol followed by competitors of “The Biggest Loser”, research suggests that metabolic changes compared to the spectacular weight loss represented in the series have made it more difficult to maintain the weight.
Six years after the candidates were in the series, the 14 studied on average still had slower metabolisms, even if they had found around two thirds of the weight they had lost, according to the study. Their bodies naturally burned fewer calories throughout the day and increased hunger signals.
“This essentially means that maintaining long -term weight is almost impossible without continuous extreme measures in many years, because your body will fight against you to maintain this weight or defend this weight at this initially higher level,” said McGarrity.
Often intertwined in “the greatest loser” – coaches, in body representations and in the interactions of the public – was a lot of shame, said McGarrity.
The format supported a myth around the weight: that the size of a person’s body is completely under their control, and having a larger body is a sign of lack of will or moral failure, she said.
This myth ignores the realities of things like genetics, the environment and individual metabolisms, and this opens the way to denigration and insensitivity, she said.
“Cruelty, verbal violence, a kind of indirect physical violence, in terms of being forced to really torture your body in an unhealthy way – there was a feeling that if you are in a wider body, you deserve this,” said Oona Hanson, a parent coach who specializes in family aid to navigate the culture of the diet and food disorders.
“It made us participate as viewers in a bit like pity or even a response of disgust in terms of the way in which the bodies of people were represented, in the way they talked about their bodies,” she added.
Docuseries have shown how dehumanizing or degrading these images could be, with trembling cameras while the candidates fell to give the impression that they caused an earthquake or challenges asking competitors to transport whole breads of bread in their mouths.
“Without really being completely aware of it, the show managed to make fun of big people,” said Borgman.
Some competitors have said that they had found empowerment and representation by being part of a competition in which they had succeeded in objectives and accomplished physical exploits, she added. But it is not difficult to find a clip of “The Biggest Loser” in which the competitors are placed in derogatory situations, added Pearl.
The content that stigmatizes a person’s size of the body and emphasizes slimming at all costs impact not only candidates, but also viewers at home, said Hanson. It is difficult for these viewers not to internalize these negative stereotypes, affecting the way people see their communities and themselves.
“The biggest loser” may have been canceled years ago, but “said TV” shares that the lasting influence of the reality show underlines the fact that the United States has not raised the way people speak of weight and body, added Borgman.
“We, as a culture, have the impression that we are super advanced. … We do not judge. We take people for whom they are, ”she said. “I don’t think it’s true. So, I hope people are moving away from this series and look at each other a little more and how we treat people. ”
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