Starvation, dehydration, and permanent damage.
Turns out "The Biggest Loser's" biggest loser was everyone who agreed to appear on the show.
"I feel so wonderful, I mean it's been a— what a life changing opportunity."
One of the talking points of "The Biggest Loser" is how quickly contestants lose weight,
with competitors commonly dropping more than 20 pounds a week.
"Are my abs showin'?"
The show justifies this because of the intense exercise and dieting, but there may also be
some other factors at play.
Contestants have admitted to intentionally dehydrating themselves so that they weigh
less.
Season 3 alum Kai Hibbard wrote on a blog that the contestants would drink as little
water as possible in the day leading up to a weigh-in, and they would also put on as
many clothes as they could prior to a workout to sweat more.
"I could tell you that before I went on the show, I never learned how to dehydrate to
manipulate a scale."
Season 1 winner Ryan Benson was so dehydrated and malnourished throughout the show that
he was urinating blood.
Professor of exercise science Lynn Darby told the New York Post:
"That's a sign of kidney damage, if not failure."
In response to the intentional dehydration and rapid weight loss, series trainer Jillian
Michaels told The New York Times:
"Contestants can get a little too crazy and they can get too thin.
[...] It's just part of the nature of reality TV."
In 2004, Ryan Benson was the first "Biggest Loser" when he went from 330 pounds to 208
pounds.
This was an impressive feat, no doubt, but red flags were raised when Benson admitted
that he intentionally dehydrated himself prior to the finale in order to weigh less.
He told Time that, as soon as the show ended, he gained, quote, "14.5 kg within five days
simply by drinking water."
Though he lost 120 pounds on the show, Benson ended up regaining that amount plus more.
In 2017, he told TooFab that he struggled to stay on top of his diet and exercise regimen
once the cameras were no longer on him, saying:
"In 'The Biggest Loser,' I did learn how to eat right, I did learn how to exercise, but
I didn't take those things into my daily life."
"I just slipped back into my old habits really quick, within the next year or two.
And within about four or five years, I'd put back on all the weight."
In fact, studies have shown that the average contestant will go on to regain the weight
they lost in the years after appearing on the series.
Despite this, Benson feels he's been shunned for his weight gain and for speaking up about
the unsafe practices he used on the show to lose weight.
He wasn't invited to the "Biggest Loser" reunion in 2009, which featured past winners of the
show.
Rachel Frederickson won Season 15 of "The Biggest Loser" after going from 260 pounds
to 105 pounds.
She dropped a shocking total of 155 pounds, which was over half of her starting body weight.
"Not only have I gotten the athlete back, but I've gotten this inner strength and this
confident girl back."
While the show celebrated Frederickson's "successful" weight loss, others were concerned about her;
her BMI had dropped beneath what doctors would consider a healthy weight range, according
to Time.
Even trainer Jillian Michaels appeared shocked and worried during Frederickson's weight loss
reveal.
Frederickson's extreme and rapid weight loss demonstrated the gray areas of "The Biggest
Loser" and how contestants were encouraged to lose as much weight as possible — at
all costs.
When the contestants were forced to run a mile on Season 8 of "The Biggest Loser," Tracey
Yukich collapsed from heat exhaustion and had to be airlifted to a hospital where she
spent 16 days recovering.
Sources close to the show indicated the collapse was not just due to overheating, but also
caused by overexertion.
Another contestant in the same mile-long race was also hospitalized after collapsing.
"Feeling like you're gonna pass out?"
"My head's swimming."
"I would strongly advise you to go with us to the hospital."
"The Biggest Loser" medical consultant Dr. Rob Huizenga told The New York Times:
"If we had to do it over, we wouldn't do it.
It was an unexpected complication and we're going to do better."
He noted that the program would closely monitor contestants' body temperatures going forward.
And while production claimed that contestants were always medically supervised, it's undeniable
that the workouts were extreme, especially for people who are not used to that level
of intense exercise.
Kai Hibbard told the New— York Post:
"There was one guy whose back was so bad, he could only exercise in the swimming pool."
Carol Wolin-Riklin, a bariatric nutrition coordinator, told LiveScience:
"They're taking people who have been inactive and are not in good shape and boom, automatically
subjecting them to this stress.
Things are going to happen."
In speaking with the New York Post about the show's extreme practices, Kai Hibbard revealed:
"One contestant had a torn calf muscle and bursitis in her knees.
The doctor told her, 'You need to rest.'
She said, 'Production told me I can’t rest.'
At one point after that, production ordered her to run, and she said, 'I can’t.'
She was seriously injured.
But they edited her to make her look lazy and b----y and combative."
"It didn't happen.
It's TV."
It's well-known that reality TV isn't actually all that realistic, but when it comes to "The
Biggest Loser," it seemed to be taken to a new level.
Instead of showcasing the real potential for injuries that comes with extreme exercise,
it seems as though the producers of "The Biggest Loser" were more concerned with creating a
compelling storyline.
"I just feel like I'm gonna pass out or something, I don't— I've never felt like this before."
On top of its body-shaming environment and unsustainable weight loss practices, "The
Biggest Loser" is, according to experts, downright dangerous.
Dr. Michael Rosenbaum, an expert at Columbia University who studies the physiology of weight
loss, weighed in on "The Biggest Loser" to The New York Times:
"What would I advise someone who wants to engage in a program associated with increased
risks of gallstones, cardiac arrhythmias and electrolyte abnormalities, and that has been
shown to be less likely to lead to long-term success in maintenance of a reduced body weight
than losing weight more slowly?
I would advise them not to do it."
Despite claiming to be focused on helping people get healthy, "The Biggest Loser" ultimately
rewarded whoever lost the most weight — meaning the show prioritized thinness over health.
Weight bias isn't a new problem.
But shaming people for their weight, then praising them once they've reached a thinner
state, with little regard for their actual health before and after the weight loss, can
have insidious consequences.
And it perpetuates an anti-fat narrative that can cause real harm to people.
"I would never even think in my worst nightmares that I would be this big."
One study published in the American Journal of Public Health notes that "obesity stigma"
and discrimination can lead to severe issues in relation to psychological and physical
health.
Specifically, the study notes:
"Stigmatization of obese individuals threatens health, generates health disparities, and
interferes with implementation of effective obesity prevention efforts."
The fact that so many people tuned in to "The Biggest Loser" — which relied on body-shame
biases to "motivate" contestants to lose weight — is deeply troubling, according to physician
and obesity specialist Dr. Yoni Freedhoff.
Dr. Freedhoff told the Guardian in 2016:
"This is the most visible and influential show on weight loss ever.
It's more powerful than any public health message.
It is more spectacular and seductive and it is the most god-awful dangerous thing to happen
to weight management in history."
The extreme exercise paired with the large calorie deficit that was seen on "The Biggest
Loser" results in, yes, rapid weight loss.
But it also results in metabolic damage.
Contestants not only had permanently slowed metabolisms but also low levels of the hormone
leptin, which regulates hunger and satiety.
Season 8 winner Danny Cahill told Us Weekly that his metabolism has slowed down drastically,
saying:
"I'm on the negative before I even start in the morning, and that's disheartening.
If I eat what a normal human would eat, I gain a pound a week."
"I was exercising three or four times as much as a normal person, and once that stopped,
the weight started creeping back on."
Kai Hibbard's memory was even impacted by the lack of calories and rapid weight loss.
She told the New York Post:
"By the end of the show, I was running on 400 calories and eight- to nine-hour workouts
per day.
Someone asked me where I was born, and I couldn't remember.
My short-term memory still sucks."
Years after the show, Hibbard's period is irregular, she loses hair, and she has knee
issues and thyroid problems.
She said:
"My thyroid, which I never had problems with, is now crap."
Worse still, while contestants endured mistreatment and abuse during the show, opening up about
their experiences isn't always an option.
In another dark twist from "The Biggest Loser," contestants needed to get permission from
the show before speaking to reporters about their experiences.
According to The New York Times, former contestants were warned they could face "serious consequences"
if they didn't seek approval first.
Thinking about why so many people watched "The Biggest Loser" can become quickly disheartening.
Sure, some people may watch for the "inspirational" messaging and the hopeful idea that, with
enough hard work, you can make some big changes to your weight.
But some believe that "The Biggest Loser" is a hit show for a different, less positive
reason: It exploits people, capitalizing off their punitive treatment and unsafe weight
loss.
It also reinforces several incorrect narratives: One, that weight loss is always as simple
as diet and exercise; two, that people are big due to laziness or lack of effort; and
three, that a thinner body always equals better health.
On top of promoting these false narratives, the show features ruthless trainers known
for their "tough love" approach to motivating contestants.
And the show's most notorious trainer is Jillian Michaels.
"I love a good faint and a good puke."
"Shut up and focus and do the work!"
"I'm proud that I made him vomit, and that's all that matters.
I've still got it."
Michaels eventually left "The Biggest Loser" in 2014 when it was reported that she was
concerned about the show's mistreatment of contestants, according to People magazine.
However, the punitive and harsh nature of the show - and Michaels' training methods
- offers shock value, which, unfortunately, is a goldmine for reality television.