I remember when “The Biggest Loser” came on the scene in 2004, a competition reality show that pitted fat contestants against each other to see who could lose the most weight over a period of time, with the winner being crowned the “Biggest Loser” and winning $250,000. Back in those days, I was actively dieting, had lost weight, and was obsessed with diet and exercise, so this show obviously appealed to me. The contestants greatly restricted their intake, exercised to the point of exhaustion almost daily (at the behest of two trainers who bullied them constantly), and as a result of this, they lost weight every week with a ginormous scale displaying their weight loss (or lack thereof) for everyone to see. In the back of my mind, I think I knew that this show was basically teaching the contestants disordered eating behaviors and that the rapid weight loss that was featured on the show could not be healthy or maintainable. But for some reason, I looked forward to it every week as I was still stuck in a diet-culture mindset, believing that fat equaled bad and that we should all be “eating healthy” and exercising to lose weight if we are fat. I watched the show religiously for the first three seasons, but once I went back to school to become a registered dietitian, I started to lose interest, and by 2007, I had sworn off the show.
Despite no longer watching the show, I do remember when a study came out on the contestants after they had completed the show. The study demonstrated that all of them now had “broken metabolisms” with their basal metabolic rate dropping down significantly after losing the vast amounts of weight six-plus years prior. Basically, in order to maintain or try to stave off weight regain, the contestants were working with a metabolism that burned 500 fewer calories than it should be, meaning that they had to restrict even more than that to maintain their weight. This metabolic adaptation, combined with hormonal changes (such as a decrease in the hormone leptin that regulates appetite), made it extremely difficult for contestants to maintain their weight loss. I also remember learning, via social media and even news shows like “The Today Show,” about “The Biggest Loser” contestant who lost “too much weight” and about her jarring appearance at the finale where she looked gaunt and malnourished. The coaches looked on in horror as she, having lost nearly 60% of her starting body weight, made her way across the stage. At this point, I was firmly rooted in the Health at Every Size (HAES) philosophy and knew that this show was not only exploitive and distasteful, but it was also downright dangerous.
In mid-August, a new three-episode docuseries was released on Netflix called “Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser.” Eight former contestants, one of the coaches, the show’s physician, and the host of the show were interviewed along with the creators of the show and some other folks. Despite knowing how triggering it could be, I decided to watch it to see if this doc called out the show for what it was, i.e., dangerous fat-phobic garbage, or if it would try to paint it in an overall positive light. Safe to say, the doc was almost as fat-phobic as the original show, claiming that although the show’s methods were drastic and unhealthy, the show ultimately “helped” the contestants (and therefore the viewers) learn “healthy” habits to lose weight. The only good thing about this doc was that they included noted fat activist, author, and podcaster Aubrey Gordon in the interviews and she, of course, was the only voice of reason, calling the show out for humiliating its contestants and the harmful effects that it had on them as well.
The footage that the doc shows from the original “The Biggest Loser” is honestly disturbing. The “challenges” that the show’s creators dreamed up were often based on humiliating the contestants, especially the food challenges. There was one challenge where the contestants had to build a tower out of “junk” food but could only do so using their mouths. I vaguely remember this challenge from when I originally watched the show, and while I know it made me uncomfortable at the time, this time it made me unbelievably angry. It was so clear that the show’s producers were exploiting these contestants in the hope of their show getting higher ratings and more sponsors. In other clips from the show, we see both of the trainers screaming and threatening the contestants in the gym, telling them that they won’t be allowed to stop exercising until they throw up. The documentary’s interviews with the former contestants revealed how much trauma and pain these experiences caused them. It was gut-wrenching to watch.
The interviews with one of the trainers who agreed to participate in the doc were pretty eye-opening. While being shown clips of himself from the original “The Biggest Loser” screaming and berating one contestant in particular, he laughs and says “oof, that was bad,” but in no way does he seem remorseful about this abuse, and he is extremely nonchalant about the emotional and psychological damage he caused. The other trainer, who declined to participate in the doc, was even more brutal to the contestants, and she was found to be giving her team members caffeine pills as a way to stave off their appetites and burn more calories, despite there being a mandate that no caffeine was allowed. I’m amazed that no one died on the show, although one woman came close during a physical challenge. She had pushed herself so hard during a running race that she collapsed and ended up being medevacked to the hospital with rhabdomyolysis, a serious condition that can result in death.
The main physician on the show was interviewed as well, and he gave a lot of mixed messages. On the one hand, he maintains that he tried to give the contestants sound medical and nutritional advice in order to help them “healthfully” lose weight. He said that he disagreed with the trainers’ techniques and feels like the contestants were harmed in many ways. But he also says that it was an “inspiring” project and that it was all worth it for the contestants to be “healthier” than when they started. He should have played a much larger role in the original “The Biggest Loser,” medically supervising the contestants to make sure they were safe, but his appearances did not make for “exciting reality TV,” so he was often in the background.
Nearly all of the interviewed contestants said that looking back, they are bothered by a lot of things that happened on the show, and they also are so deeply immersed in diet culture to this day. Two of the interviewees admitted that they are taking GLP-1s to help with the “food noise,” and most of the contestants have regained the weight and then some. It was just painful to see how the producers of the show felt little to no regret about how they literally harmed and exploited fat people to make as much money as possible. I guess it should come as no surprise that at the end of the docuseries, the overall message was that “The Biggest Loser” did some pretty messed up stuff, but the ends justified the means when the contestants lost weight and “got healthy.” For myself, the doc brought up a lot of memories for me around how I used to feel about my body and how deeply entrenched I was in diet culture. And at the same time, it highlights that even now, in the woke year of 2025, people still believe that fat people deserve the shame and abuse that happens to them in the name of reaching thinness.