Why We Normally Don't Watch "The Biggest Loser"

As I explained before, Aimee and I don't normally watch "The Biggest Loser", because we disagree with their methods.  We did watch the most recent iteration (season 15), because Olympic weightlifter Holley Mangold participated in it.  Unfortunately (fortunately?), Ms Mangold was eliminated fairly early in the show, but we finished watching the season anyway.

Before

Now there's an international media uproar over season 15's winner, Rachel Fredrickson.

The incredibly slender Rachel weighed in at just 105lbs which, at a reportedly height of between 5-foot-4 and 5-foot-5, would make her classed as underweight on the Body Mass Index Scale used by doctors.

After

Ms Fredrickson claims she eats 1600 kilocalories a day and exercises "up to four times a day".  It's highly unlikely that level of caloric intake is sufficient to sustain that level of physical activity.  Ms Fredrickson is only 24, and a former nationally ranked swimmer, and I believe that provides further evidence that her "transformation" is far from healthy.  Compare the following photos, which juxtapose Ms Fredrickson at her fittest and now.

The "before" photo (from her competitive swimming days) is of much lower resolution, but I think you can still see the difference, especially when you enlarge the "after" photo.  In the "after" photo, Ms Fredrickson's face looks dehydrated, starved and exhausted.

Before

After

Now Look at her arm.  At her fittest, Ms Fredrickson was not a small girl.  Judging from her swimming photos and her height, a healthy, natural weight for Ms Fredrickson is probably between 130 lb and 150 lb.  At 105 lb she looks emaciated and frail.

My point is that, although I agree that Ms Fredrickson went to unhealthy lengths to win the title of "The Biggest Loser", nobody should be shocked.  Before season 15, I'd only watched one episode of the show, but even then I thought it was fairly obvious that the contestants and coaches went to unhealthy lengths to win.  After having watched a whole season, it's even more obvious to me that contestants starve and dehydrate themselves to "put up big numbers" at the weigh-ins.  I didn't need to read a former contestant's "tell all interview" to see that.

TV thrives on sensationalism, and a $250,000 grand prize and the fame that can go with it are powerful motivators.  They pretty much guarantee unhealthy results.  This may be the most dramatic case in point (I don't know if it is), but if it is, it's only more of the same.

In a strange way, that gives me hope.  I think it's likely that Ms Fredrickson went to extremes to win a prize, and now that she's won she'll go back to healthier habits.  Good luck, Rachel Fredrickson!