The Biggest Loser was a disgusting TV show

[AnxiousApocalypse]

Just been watching Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser on Netflix. Why do people hate fat people like me so much? Someone nearly died while doing the show. Obese people get so much hate and ridicule in society and the people behind The Biggest Loser took advantage of the contestants' desperation. It was just another chance for people to make fun of fat people and profit off of fat-shaming.

I still enjoy watching ‘My 600lb life’ but starting to realise how nearly every episode features a very overweight person who is also very poor - they live in trailers or are surrounded by mess (always eat off paper plates too, for some reason!). Every episode opens with a weird angle of said person, making them look beyond gross. They stuff their faces constantly with fast food too. Even if they lose 10lbs, Dr Now berates them for not hitting the target of 30lbs. Even the psychologist Dr Paradise is horrible to them. They admit to having suffered abuse and his advice is along the lines of ‘you just have to get over it’. Oh ok then! 😂

Still enjoy it but yeah, it all adds to the idea of fat people as being lazy, greedy and thick.

Audible have a podcast called Edge of Reality and it’s all about reality shows and the issues behind them.
https://www.audible.co.uk/podcast/Edge-Of-Reality-The-Story-TVs-Too-Scared-to-Tell/B0B4T59YQG

It’s really interesting and whilst I used to enjoy the dodgy shows, I had absolutely no idea about how awful they were. I listened to it a couple of years ago and it’s really shocking.

In hindsight I know they were awful but I was an avid watcher of most of the shows mentioned on here.
I loved the biggest loser and bought the books that both Jillian Michaels and the other one bought out (Greg??? It was something like The Skinny Rules). I haven't seen the new Netflix show but I do remember at the time there being reports of the contestants being hugely dehydrated ahead of weigh in.
Also T&S - even at the time people thought they went too far but to be fair the styling tips were spot on.
10 years younger - most of the time all they needed to do was sort out someone's teeth.
I'd have happily gone on all of them. Embarrassingly.

There was an article years ago when they talked about pissing blood they were so dehydrated. Also the ‘weekly’ weigh ins weren’t even a week, they were more than 7 days which helped them lose more weight but then looked more impressive.

Definitely prey on the vulnerable and all these programs get worse and worse to ramp it up
love island what’s a couple of suicides between friends

I watched the documentary and thought the tv producers and trainers, Bob and Gillian, came across as sociopaths. It’s a wonder that they didn’t kill anybody.

Funny you say that as I loved it and also had anorexia in my late teens early twenties. Dr Christian Jessen. He also did embarrassing bodies.

Secret eaters was also an interesting one. And you are what you eat. I loved all of them

Did Gillian McKeith front one of those diet/makeover shows too? The only thing I remember about her only that she'd been calling her "doctor" but it turned out her only qualification was a diploma she'd printed off the internet. Or something like that.

ETA: Oh and she was obsessed with 💩.

Yanbu, so many reality tv shows were/are horrific.

It was worse in the early aughts, but I guess we still have Love Island.

I remember watching Dance Moms back in the day. Not quite the same thing I know. I caught a few clips of it last week and it's basically just child abuse served up on the screen. Horrendous.

Totally agree
“reality” tv shows were brutal and for the most part, cruel
like a screen freak show in the circus
I was guilty of watching them all back in the day, I remember a particularly awful American one called ‘the swan’
incredible!
im no snowflake, but on reflection they really are terribly mean

It was definitely for its time, that era of reality TV made fun of people for all sorts of reasons, even their houses, TBL was no different. I watched the Netflix show and found it really eye opening, I remember watching the show but, as with all of these type of shows, I never really gave much thought to how the contestants would get on long-term.

I haven't seen Dance Moms but there's a creepy sub culture of parents involved in beauty pagents and competitive hobbies.

@Rallentanda

Wasn't that called something like celebrity fat club? There was also a celebrity weight loss programme on a farm I think too.

Just wanted to say it's not always fat people.My husband is very tall and people often make unkind comments, when he eats out with a very short work colleague they get laughed at and commented on.At least every otjer week.

I’ve watched it. Tbh, it’s a bit patronising for people to assume that people who do these reality shows are vulnerable and weak. How can they be? You would have to possess a lot of confidence to apply for these shows, plus have thick skin. Many do it for fame and fortune. There’s a lot more routes to losing weight and getting fit than appearing on a reality show in front of millions. I think too that this was a long time ago, and some of the people on the show acknowledge that what we now know around dieting is a lot different to how it was looked at back then. It’s now realised that diets are only a quick fix, and it’s actually lifestyle that needs to be permanently changed.

DM isn't quite that (though there's a slight element of it). It's not pageants, it's more mainstream dance classes/competitions/recitals.

My objection is more about the bullying and humiliation of little girls by their teacher, other children, other children's mothers and occasionally their own mothers.

Reality TV has replaced the gladiatorial arena of ancient Rome. There's an insatiable desire in human nature for cruelty, vulgarity, blood lust and debasement. We think we've progressed from the days of Nero but we're kidding ourselves.

I enjoyed the documentary. Some of the interviewees were great. I was appalled that the PTs didn’t follow the Dr’s guidelines. Shocked at the caffeine pills. Agree with you… horrendous show. No idea why PTs think yelling & shouting at someone would work; and the temptation trials were abhorrent and imo, designed to make obese people look ridiculous with food in their mouths. There really should have been post show support too… I could go on. Thought the documentary was thoughtfully put together.

The Swan was the worst. The sheer amount of plastic surgery (lots of it done in one go), the not being able to look at themselves for months on end, the isolation, the looking like a completely different person at the end.

I think you have to be inherently a bit vulnerable to want to go on a TV show where you know you’ll be humiliated in front of potentially millions of viewers, just for the fame. I don’t know many well adjusted people who would do it.

I remember Gok Wan putting a load of women in an empty swimming pool wearing just their underwear, and turning a fire hose on them.

That was my lightbulb moment with this sort of show. Horrifically humiliating.

But vulnerability usually comes from a place of having no confidence in who you are. I think to actually take the trouble to find and apply for a reality show does show a lot of confidence and capability. Maybe the confidence is misplaced, and they lack some self awareness to appear on the show, but I don’t class that as being vulnerable. The majority of us just would never do it, because it’s a huge thing to actually put yourself out there like that, especially on a weight loss program. And the contestants interviewed a few years after the show, where some had maintained a healthy weight, and even the guy who put it all back on, seemed to be pretty well adjusted individuals.

The whole genre is troubling. The Biggest Loser was awful. Others I hated: 10 Years Younger; awful goal, horrible discussion of a woman’s “faults” as if she was a piece of meat and would have more value when some bored shoppers guessed her age as less than it was at the start of the show.

My particular hatred was from Channel 4 who had signed up to a mental health charter at the time: the obsessive compulsive cleaners programmes. They made light of a very distressing disorder and the whole format was likely to reinforce the problem for those featured and anyone viewing who was grappling with the same difficulties. It reinforced the idea that “we are all a bit OCD” simply because someone is very tidy or cleans a lot. Then Channel 4 invited people to enjoy OCD as entertainment. It’s such a distressing and debilitating disorder and they could have done something so much more useful with the airtime.

I really dislike the way those programmes have often given the green light to people to ridicule and judge others, for their weight, dress sense, psychological problems etc. I also dislike the simplification of difficulties. There was a therapy programme featuring troubled celebrities. In my opinion you can deliver ethical therapy or you can make TV entertainment but you can’t do both at the same time and I question the motives of the therapist. It did a disservice to the celebrities who were down on their luck and vulnerable to the invitation to share stuff. It also did a disservice to viewers who got to see edited highlights and potted stories of improvement or recovery that gave the impression that therapy is quick and easy. Again it gave the opportunity to ridicule others for their difficulties and challenges. Some of the modern reality shows have really run with the “theatre of cruelty” that also reduces, simplifies and edits everything to the point it isn’t reality at all, there is nothing to learn from it, it’s just nasty.

I once had a conversation with Davina McCall about Big Brother being an interesting psychological experiment in her opinion but to me it’s the kind of experiment on humans that would not be ethical in a clinical setting and should own up to what it is, a 21st Century freak show that does us all a disservice.

I never saw the biggest loser. But this thread has reminded me of Supersize V Super skinny. Pseudo scientific bullying crap. Examples including:

• Supersizers wore more revealing underwear *Supersizers dancing in underwear but not the super skinnies.
• Waspish comments and tone of voice towards the larger contestants, whilst talking to the super skinny contestants respectfully and compassionately.
• Monster or buffoon music for the supersizers. Gentle, sad piano music for the super skinnies.

Others I've forgotten

😯😯😯.
What on earth for? Apart from mass abject humiliation of course.

Always felt uncomfortable the way GW would be grabbing the womens bodies but justifying it that it was fine because he was gay.