There’s been a fair amount of buzz around these here internets about this (semi-) scandal. To sum up: Biggest Loser contestant gets voted off the show, and in the final minutes of the show (at which point they always do a little follow-up segment on the person most recently voted off), they show ex-contestant running a marathon, saying he ran it in 3:53 (in spite of clock showing 5:53)–as it turns out, it seems as though show producers embellished the story a little bit. This obviously brings up a number of questions, not the least of which is why producers felt they had to make embellish at all. In one account, the contestant ran a full 17-miles of the marathon course. In another, he was only driven 3 miles, which would mean he ran a full 23.2 miles. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending any of the behaviors involved in this story, but it seems to me that if a guy loses 100 pounds and runs 17, 23, or 10 miles, or even less, then we can leave well enough alone and just be impressed that he did that. No need to give us a false time or film him running through the finish line. That’s the most insulting part, is that this is supposedly not an accomplishment unless it’s a full 26.2 miles run under 4 miles.
Which brings me to my biggest problem with Biggest Loser–nothing is ever good enough. Full disclosure: I watch this show every week, I root for people I like, I get mad at the villanous, conniving people, and ultimately, I wish all these people the best. They are struggling with something extremely serious, and in many cases, being on the show is saving their lives. BUT! at the end of the day, I feel like this show just takes one extreme behavior (overeating, maybe, or neglecting to take care of oneself in whatever way) and transforms it into another (anything to drop pounds). While on the show, contestants seem to exist in a perpetual state of anxiety and fear. On this season especially, there are certain contestants who express the same sentiment week after week: I will not have lost enough weight, I will be voted off, I have no security here, if I am voted off I will never be able to do this by myself. This is, I find, extremely upsetting because in many of these cases, “enough weight” translates to approximately 10 pounds. To break that down, 10 pounds is equivalent to 35,000 calories. In order to lose 10 pounds in one week, you would have to burn 35,000 calories. This is why healthy, maintainable weight loss is 1-2 pounds a week. It is perfectly reasonable and realistic to expect to slash 3,500 calories in a week by making intelligent choices in what you eat and exercising. If you cut 250 calories from your diet and burn an additional 250 calories through exercise every day over the course of a week, there is your one pound right there. But I digress. When you are being set up to have a 10-pounds-or-nothing mentality, you will eventually get to a point where you will, ultimately, lose. And I don’t mean weight.
I understand that Biggest Loser contestants are being taught healthy habits that will supposedly carry them through life once they leave the ranch, but I also refuse to believe that every former BL participant looks like Ali Vincent, who seems to be the show’s poster girl these days. In an interview in a rag mag (US Weekly, maybe?), the show’s most recent winner talked about how she limits herself to 1,200 or 1,400 calories a day and, while preparing for the show’s finale, worked out for eight hours a day. This is not healthy. I may have read too much into what she said, but she didn’t seem confident so much as somewhat scared of what might happened if she slipped.
On the outside, the message of Biggest Loser is healthy and positive, but below the surface I feel like it is just a repetition of the same noise we hear everywhere else: you have to be thin or people won’t like you, it’s not enough to have healthy habits, if you’re not losing extreme amounts of weight and running marathons in highly respectable amounts of time, you’ve failed. Doesn’t this, ultimately, do more harm than good?
I came to run 
This is a very interesting topic and I appreciate your perspective. I think the key word in trying to figure out this show, which I do not watch, is “extreme.” This an extreme attempt to show us members of the viewing public people who need to lose extreme amounts of weight. Everything about it is extreme and you are right – it is doomed to fail ultimately! It is no different than other reality-based tv shows, such as Survivor, Bachelor Millionaire or whatever, blah blah blah. Nothing about these programs is life-enhancing in any way, not for us the viewing public and not for the participants. Just my two cents.
I think you’re totally right–there is absolutely nothing life-enhancing about these shows. At the end of the day, it is all about ratings, which are sure to go down if people are only losing one or two pounds in a week. This is why this concept really just doesn’t seem to work all that well.
maybe I was a little too negative when I said there is nothing life-enhancing because I guess if the B.L. participants actually learn healthy eating habits then that is something good and therefore is life-enhancing. Okay, they learn that good stuff but won’t they just go back to the old habits like you say when they are off the show and have to go it alone?
I’ve never seem the show, but I’ve heard of the guy who ‘cheated’ the marathon and I think it’s a terrible thing to do in so many ways. First, as you said, loosing 100 pounds and running 17 miles is a huge accomplishment and if that is what he was able to do, they should have leave it at that. Then there is the part of cheating, which is so wrong by both the producers and the guy who did it, I was thinking of downloading the show to see what the fuzz is about because everyone seems to love BL, but now it has lost all credibility to me. And then there is the time, why do they say that he finished in 3:53?? I find that insulting! a lot of people expend years training to accomplish a sub-4. and then saying that this guy who is not in great shape yet did it on his first attempt…. the whole thing is wrong!