The Biggest Loser is a show that most people have watched and come to form strong views and opinions about.

Some people are fans and find the show “motivating”, “encouraging”, “successful” whilst others say that it is “unrealistic”, “unsafe”, “outrageous”.

For those who haven’t watched it – The Biggest Loser is a competition to see who can lose the most weight in a set time frame. The weight loss is calculated as a percentage weight loss based on the contestants’ starting weight.

Achieving high quality, client-centred outcomes is one of my passions. I recognise that in today’s society, there are many barriers to achieving good health and nutrition whether it relates to disease, lifestyle, work, financial or personal circumstances – and most importantly that everyone is different!

As a dietitian, I get asked all the time–

• “how does someone lose so much weight in a week?”,

• “is it safe to lose so much weight so quickly?”,

• “they don’t show a lot of their diet – what does it consist of, do you know?”,

• “they seem to be exercising a LOT – is that good for them?”

Since I had only seen bits and pieces of the show, I couldn’t really give a satisfactory answer.

So, I decided to sit and watch an entire episode – which turned into two episodes, and the finale as well.

Here are some of my thoughts on the show.

Pros:

A strong circle of support

A good and sturdy support network is important when making lifestyle changes of any calibre. On The Biggest Loser, each contestant had their trainers, team mates and fellow contestants to lean on when the going got tough. With the constant encouragement and push (and not-so-occasional kick up the backside), each contestant was well supported throughout their journey to lose weight.

Race to the finish line – $$$

Most people are, to varying degrees, competitive by nature. So, setting the show up as a competition, with such a large, beefy carrot dangled in front of the contestants, made the pain of the whip so worth the while! Of course, we cannot all be rewarded in tens of thousands of dollars in prize money for losing weight, but a reward based system definitely gives great incentive for us to do something that is fundamentally so difficult and mundane.

Cons:

Unrealistic expectations making the reality show not a reality at all

The sheer amount of weight contestants were losing was impressive, but outraging at the same time (especially when we are forever stressing to clients that a safe and realistic rate of weight loss is between 0.5 to 1kg a week).

Also, the focus became so centred on absolute weight loss that it lost sight of more important things like – a balance between diet, exercise and REST, quality of life, “weight” loss versus “fat” loss and so much more.

Needless to say, we don’t all have the luxury of being whipped into shape by a personal trainer all day every day, not needing to work, cook or do any housework. When taken out of the context of The Biggest Loser, the “lifestyle” that it portrays is simply not one that 99.9% of the population can mirror – yet, it is what a lot of people who watch the show would take as a fine example of “successful” weight loss.

Exercise, more exercise… what about the food?

Of course, the dietitian part of me is protesting that there was not a big focus on nutrition – but there really wasn’t! I have never been one to attribute successful long term weight loss to diet only, but The Biggest Loser made it seem like as long as you trained REALLY hard (to the point where most contestants were over trained and risking injury), you would be able to lose the weight and keep the weight off.

Whilst I am sure they had their diets taken care of, it would have been nice to see a bit more focus go into the importance of healthy eating and what it entails when it comes to weight loss, fuel for training, recovery and maintaining good energy levels throughout the day.

Finally the finale – but then what?

One of the biggest issues I found was that throughout the show, contestants were not taught real-life strategies to cope with the barriers that can pop up day-to-day, such as: emotional barriers (stress, for example), mechanical barriers (work, appointments, taking the kids to swimming) and knowledge barriers (not knowing the nutritional value of foods in order to make informed choices with meals and snacks). This meant that, when the contestants returned to the real world, they would likely revert back to their old ways and their old weight.