Maintenance Phase - The Biggest Loser

00:00:00.000 hi everybody welcome to maintenance phase where we are uh taking your 2000s tv obsessions

00:00:16.780 and uh exploring them with an uncomfortable level of detail oh is this one gonna be about

00:00:23.120 buffy the vampire slayer is that what you're saying look we're gonna talk to you about angel

00:00:26.980 today and you're not gonna like what you hear. I am Michael Hobbs. I'm a reporter for the Huffington

00:00:33.160 Post. I am Aubrey Gordon. I am an author and columnist for Self Magazine. You can also find

00:00:39.460 us on Patreon. We are at patreon.com slash maintenance phase. That is also linked through

00:00:44.380 our website and in the show notes. The same goes for t-shirts, which you can get through

00:00:48.620 TeePublic. You are beautiful. I'm gonna do that every time you mention the Patreon from now on.

00:00:54.720 Please just do as many Christina Aguilera impressions as you want. 1.00

00:01:01.240 And today we're talking about The Biggest Loser.

00:01:04.000 I'm very excited about this one, Mike.

00:01:05.860 I'm like equal parts excited and like a little bit of dread because I've looked into enough of The Biggest Loser to know what an absolute horror show it is.

00:01:14.600 But I also know that you are going to do deep dives that are going to reveal things to me that I maybe wish I didn't know.

00:01:22.260 i was actually thinking this morning that we need to somehow come up with like a content warning 0.61

00:01:26.800 broad enough like all hands on deck enough for this fucking episode oh really this has everything 0.99

00:01:33.180 this has like eating disorders terrible calorie shit horrible fat phobia there's like a dead kid 0.99

00:01:39.020 at one point like this episode is dark dude like i like doing this show because on my other show 0.93

00:01:45.380 it's like you're wrong about and we're like busting people's preconceptions and on this one 0.97

00:01:49.100 It's like if you think The Biggest Loser is trash, like it's trash. 0.94

00:01:53.220 Like we're not going to blow any minds today. 0.98

00:01:55.700 Like it's maybe the most damaging television show ever.

00:01:58.400 I just don't know.

00:01:59.160 So listen, I don't know enough about the history of TV to know this, but I do know that like

00:02:02.540 there are not many TV shows that have like a hospitalization toll.

00:02:08.720 And I also will say like I come to The Biggest Loser not from having watched it regularly,

00:02:13.360 but from having been someone who was like a fat person when it was on. 0.98

00:02:19.100 And seeing the ways in which Jillian Michaels, who was sort of the like rising star trainer, who would just absolutely scream at people. 0.97

00:02:29.980 And it wasn't just like raising her voice.

00:02:31.760 It was like, I don't want you getting off that treadmill until I say you get off or unless you're dead.

00:02:36.580 Or like, you know what I mean?

00:02:37.260 Like just like horrifying stuff like that. 1.00

00:02:39.840 She's like the meanest. 1.00

00:02:40.660 Yeah. 0.70

00:02:40.800 I feel like what I saw at that time was a number of other people who were not fat getting enlisted in that as work that they could do that would somehow benefit fat people.

00:02:52.160 So, like, that's my dog in this fight.

00:02:54.780 One of the academic articles I read has a list of quotes from Jillian Michaels.

00:02:59.260 Do you want me to read them to you?

00:03:00.480 Oh, I don't, but I do.

00:03:04.180 What you got?

00:03:05.060 These are so brutal.

00:03:06.080 OK, I don't care if people die on this floor. 0.99

00:03:08.580 You better die looking good. 0.99

00:03:09.860 i'm proud that i made him vomit if you don't run i will pull alex on the floor and i will break 1.00

00:03:15.300 every bone in his body i don't care if one of your legs falls off or if one of your lungs explodes 1.00

00:03:20.660 the only way you're coming off the damn treadmill is if you die on it it's fun watching people 0.96

00:03:26.340 suffer well this is why we're doing the content warning it's like this is this is like as bright 0.97

00:03:30.780 and sunny as it gets this episode i was gonna say if the trigger warning didn't get you i know

00:03:35.180 that little list of quotes like just podcast switching off what we're basically saying is

00:03:41.140 under no circumstances should you listen to the rest of this episode yeah definitely don't listen

00:03:45.280 to our podcast guys no one is prepared for how terrible this is so before we get into the actual

00:03:52.160 content of biggest loser and the never-ending horror show that is the rest of this episode

00:03:56.980 we should first establish how big of a deal biggest loser was the biggest loser was for

00:04:03.140 years one of the most popular reality shows on television so at its peak it had i believe it was

00:04:08.500 10 million viewers per episode jesus it also it spun off all this marketing and licensing

00:04:15.120 so there were like biggest loser fat camps there were biggest loser tv dinners there was of course

00:04:21.720 all this other merch you could get like workout nutrition diet cookbooks so at its peak the

00:04:28.040 The Biggest Loser franchise was making $100 million a year off of ancillary products.

00:04:35.060 People are desperate to lose weight.

00:04:36.240 If you promise people that you can have the results of the people that you're seeing on TV with only like whatever this steamed broccoli recipe, people will fall for it.

00:04:45.200 And in the 2000s, they did.

00:04:47.460 The show was on for 17 seasons.

00:04:50.520 Jesus Christ.

00:04:51.420 That's like Simpsons numbers. 0.65

00:04:52.580 And also as just sort of a glimpse of how mainstream this appeal was, Michelle Obama appeared on Biggest Loser twice. 0.62

00:05:01.380 What? 1.00

00:05:01.820 Yeah, because she was doing all of her childhood obesity stuff. 0.99

00:05:04.440 Twice, dude.

00:05:05.420 I'll tell you what, every part of me loves and appreciates Michelle Obama except the fat part of me. 0.78

00:05:11.480 I know, man.

00:05:12.200 Where I'm like, oh no, I love you so much.

00:05:14.740 Why you gotta?

00:05:15.680 We're eventually going to do an episode on her and it's just going to be us going, uh, the whole time.

00:05:20.320 i like her i want to like her it's just this huge blind spot yeah just uh so i have a complex

00:05:30.060 structure for this episode but before we get to that can you walk me through like what does a

00:05:34.860 typical episode look like like what happens in the biggest loser so the biggest loser is

00:05:40.320 a season-long reality show competition it's not like chopped right where there are different

00:05:46.960 competitors every episode. They are all fat people. They do an initial challenge that gets 0.99

00:05:53.320 them some kind of advantage in the final challenge. Yeah. And then every week they compete to see who

00:05:59.720 has lost the most weight. Yes. And they get on a big scale, quote unquote scale. I don't think

00:06:06.340 it's actually really a scale. I think it's a TV set. Oh, yeah, it's fake. I mean, various

00:06:10.560 contestants have said that like they get weighed backstage beforehand. And then they stand on like

00:06:14.580 this pedestal which is not a scale and then the numbers appear on screen yes yes totally they are 0.80

00:06:19.920 required is my understanding to take their shirts off for that way in the women are in spandex and

00:06:26.940 sports bras and the men have their shirts off so there's like quite a bit of like leering at fat

00:06:32.400 bodies like there's part of it to me that feels very very much like a freak show that is dressing

00:06:38.500 itself up as redemption yes the appeal of the show is you get to see fat people pull themselves

00:06:43.660 up out of their own wretchedness yeah so the end of the show you see they sort of step onto these

00:06:49.000 scales wearing as little clothes as possible you see their big numbers flash up on the scale and

00:06:54.560 whoever loses the least amount of weight gets sent home and their scores can be adjusted based on the

00:07:01.560 advantages that they got in the earlier challenge so like if you win a challenge you get an extra

00:07:05.520 three pounds or something knocked off of your number so it's like mostly a weight loss thing

00:07:10.880 But also they do these little sort of challenges along the way that are like, well, it's not strictly weight loss.

00:07:15.860 I don't know.

00:07:16.360 I mean, I did find a content analysis where a bunch of researchers went through and watched two entire seasons, which is more than I could get through.

00:07:24.320 And two thirds of the content was not sort of behavioral weight change, diet and exercise stuff. 0.98

00:07:31.580 Most of it was reality TV bullshit. 0.55

00:07:34.540 This person is trying to get immunity, but then this person is like the runner up and like this person is going to vote this other person off. 0.99

00:07:40.240 like very standard reality show drama right and the weird selective editing where they just take

00:07:46.820 a bunch of b-roll of people sitting silently and then they put intense music behind it and they

00:07:50.680 make it seem like a confrontation that happens a lot totally well and also the thing that i

00:07:55.260 remember the most from like the bulk of screen time on the biggest loser that i remember seeing

00:08:01.120 is just watching fat people work out extremely strenuously in a way that looked dangerous to me

00:08:09.240 just like dripping sweat sometimes vomiting yeah they like the vomiting all of this you're just

00:08:14.860 watching fat people go through like clearly excruciating physical pain yeah while thin

00:08:21.260 people who appear to be physically fit are shouting at fat people who appear to be in extreme pain and

00:08:27.960 not physically fit yeah it's like hot people yelling at fat people hot mean people yeah it's 0.99

00:08:33.360 like homeroom on that note we are going to watch a clip together oh lord this is a fucking nightmare 0.95

00:08:40.660 i couldn't watch a whole i couldn't bring myself to watch a whole season but i just sort of jumped 0.75

00:08:44.780 around because i wanted to get a representative sample of this show and how it changed over the

00:08:49.120 years so i would watch sort of you know episode six from season two and episode two from season

00:08:54.080 12 and so what i'm about to show you is the season premiere of season seven this is the show

00:09:00.720 introducing us to the two trainers bob and jillian oh yay hey you you you you you at home

00:09:09.080 i am talking to you america we're the fattest country in the world you realize that 300 000

00:09:17.780 people are dying from obesity every single year the stakes are high don't you get it what is it

00:09:24.860 going to take for you to make that change.

00:09:29.120 Quit smoking.

00:09:30.000 Take the stairs instead of the elevator.

00:09:31.820 Go for a walk.

00:09:33.400 Drive past a drive-through.

00:09:35.660 Make a change.

00:09:37.340 Do something.

00:09:38.620 You're worth it.

00:09:39.500 What you're about to watch is our biggest season today.

00:09:42.680 Five years leading up to this moment.

00:09:46.180 But none of it means anything if you're

00:09:47.960 going to sit there and eat ice cream watching our show.

00:09:51.180 Five, four, three, two, one.

00:09:53.980 I'm meaning two, one.

00:09:57.560 Jesus Christ.

00:09:59.900 Take the stairs instead of the elevator. 1.00

00:10:02.740 Like, do you seriously think that me as a 350 pound woman taking the stairs instead of an elevator is going to make me thin? 0.72

00:10:14.100 How long do you think that's going to take?

00:10:15.960 What?

00:10:16.140 It's so, it's so, I love that they threw that in there.

00:10:19.020 like the most cliched advice and also the advice that doctors always use as the one not to tell 0.97

00:10:24.640 people because it's so fucking facile. Like a lot of people work on the first floor of their 0.85

00:10:29.940 building or on like the 36th floor. Yeah. They put it out there like it's some sort of like

00:10:34.200 forbidden truth. And it's like, do you realize we've all been told that at least 25 times in

00:10:39.080 our lives? They also throw out my favorite garbage statistic. It's the same one that 0.97

00:10:44.700 the fen-fen and redux manufacturers used this is why i picked this clip aubrey you love that number

00:10:50.400 it's just like waving red in front of a bowl to show me that 300 000 number i was like aubrey's 0.54

00:10:56.480 gonna fucking hate this oh i'm gonna hate it so much but also kind of love it um so that 300 000

00:11:04.240 deaths per year due to obesity is completely bogus completely bogus completely exaggerated 0.97

00:11:10.900 the source the person who sort of like first elevated that number has been like please stop

00:11:16.600 using it that's not what this is and people just love to keep using it I think in part because it

00:11:22.960 justifies the way that they treat fat people right that they're like yeah it's not that I 0.98

00:11:26.160 don't care about you it's that I care about you the most so I'm gonna be a true trash panda well 0.90

00:11:32.280 this to me encapsulates sort of why I picked this clip because it's this perfect encapsulation in 0.97

00:11:37.720 60 90 seconds of the show's completely contradictory tone toward fat people because at one side

00:11:45.580 they're saying you know you deserve better you deserve this better life for yourself right like

00:11:49.840 it's it's being done out of care but then on the other side literally like the next sentence

00:11:55.000 they're saying don't sit there and eat ice cream and watch this this is the last straw you're gonna

00:11:59.960 die if you don't do this so it's like well do you care about me or not yeah this is also where

00:12:05.520 the logic of anti-fatness and the logic of sort of like weight loss right tips into the logic of 0.91

00:12:13.080 like spousal or family abuse right where they're like i'm doing this for your own good i wouldn't

00:12:19.080 do this if you didn't make me and it's really wild to me that culturally we have all gotten

00:12:26.060 on board with like yeah actually for some groups of people you have to publicly abuse and shame them

00:12:33.240 for their own good right that we have all sort of collectively bought into this logic that we would

00:12:37.880 absolutely not stand for in individual relationships yeah suddenly when it's on a

00:12:43.160 grand scale we're like yeah no that's good also some of us just like ice cream bob listen you know

00:12:49.260 some of us are eating halo top yeah i also this is so fucking petty but my other beef with this

00:12:57.480 clip so we stopped before it got into the really bad stuff where they were like introducing us to 0.73

00:13:01.020 all the contestants this is season seven where it's like the couples season and there's best 0.87

00:13:05.820 friends and there's like a father and a granddaughter and there's no fucking same 1.00

00:13:10.500 sex couples yeah i'm like you can't throw some gay people in bob yeah you guys are gay yell at 1.00

00:13:16.180 some gay people fat gay people exist bob i'm right here bob come and get me 1.00

00:13:22.280 okay so the way that we're gonna do this is i have five reasons why the biggest loser is trash 0.99

00:13:31.820 and oh i like we're going to walk through each of them in turn so reason number one that the 0.94

00:13:38.380 biggest loser is trash is that it's wildly unrealistic some of this stuff is like really 0.79

00:13:43.440 obvious the fact that it's a reality show right like all reality shows are fundamentally unrealistic 0.99

00:13:48.500 But I think one of the most important aspects of its unrealistic trashness that doesn't actually show up in the academic literature all that much is the kinds of participants that they choose. 0.69

00:14:01.780 So the contestants on it are not a representative sample of fat people.

00:14:06.820 They have deliberately chosen fat people who have like emotional eating issues, who have

00:14:12.840 compulsive eating issues, who basically get no exercise, and who are extremely unhappy

00:14:18.820 with their weight.

00:14:19.660 I don't know what percentage of fat people that is, but that is not all fat people.

00:14:24.060 There's a lot of fat people who are fit and do exercise.

00:14:27.240 There are a lot of fat people that don't have issues with compulsive overeating.

00:14:30.880 there are lots of fat people who are just like, I am this big and I am perfectly happy with it.

00:14:34.940 But we never see any of those people.

00:14:37.120 Right. And there are also fat people who have polycystic ovarian syndrome or lipoedema who

00:14:42.220 can't actually lose weight in the ways that we like to think that fat people can just

00:14:46.960 pay attention for a little while and drop 100 pounds, right? Like,

00:14:50.800 ultimately, like, I think the thing that is easy for people to forget about The Biggest Loser,

00:14:54.720 which blows my mind, but it's true, is that fundamentally, their task is to make a TV show.

00:14:59.860 Yes.

00:15:00.140 That has a bunch of drama to it.

00:15:01.980 Their task is not to encourage medically healthy weight loss at a sustainable rate.

00:15:07.560 That's not a TV show.

00:15:09.000 Oh yeah.

00:15:09.420 So we need to go through this, but it is like the also super duper obvious point about the

00:15:14.220 unrealisticness of The Biggest Loser.

00:15:16.580 Just the fact that they're literally trapped in a ranch house for six months and exercising

00:15:21.000 eight hours a day.

00:15:21.900 Like if you're going to watch a weight loss TV show, this is the worst model to try to

00:15:25.640 replicate because you can't go off to a ranch for six months and have somebody shout at

00:15:29.320 you for your entire working day so i found a really interesting analysis online where they

00:15:34.180 look just like collected all the numbers on the first 17 seasons so it was 277 contestants

00:15:40.620 and this is bananas the average contestant loses 16 pounds in the first week what yeah so we have

00:15:49.940 to temper this with the fact that we we also know from former contestants that quote-unquote week

00:15:54.920 is a little bit of a misnomer like oftentimes the show will call it you know because it airs

00:15:59.300 every week so the show will say like week two week three even though the contestants are actually

00:16:03.260 there for two or three weeks oftentimes but they're still depicting to the public that this

00:16:08.380 is a week right they're still essentially saying that it is possible for human bodies to do this

00:16:12.740 in a week jesus christ one guy lost 41 pounds the first week no so like this a is not good for you

00:16:21.100 to be losing this much weight this fast secondly it's not remotely realistic without like a severe

00:16:26.420 eating disorder to be losing this much weight in a week that's like a toddler yeah he lost a toddler

00:16:32.660 so there's been like various analyses of this over the years and one of them finds that the

00:16:37.640 contestants are burning eight to nine thousand calories every day in exercise jesus they're

00:16:42.680 usually taking in somewhere between 500 and 1500 calories a day which i also just want to say

00:16:47.820 listen if you've ever been on one of those treadmills or ellipticals where they like count

00:16:52.160 how many calories you've burned where you get on for like an hour and they're like you burned

00:16:56.180 two oreos i know i know where you're like yeah what so the amount of and the strenuousness of

00:17:04.140 that exercise has to be through the roof yeah and they're being yelled at by hot people the

00:17:08.280 whole time which makes it worse mean hot people which makes them unhot to me it makes them hotter

00:17:12.840 to me unfortunately oh no that's my own that's my own personal stuff we're we're gonna have a

00:17:17.460 therapy episode my issues with mean hot people so there's all the like unrealistic trapped in

00:17:25.760 a ranch, eating, exercising. There's all that unrealisticness. But I also think underneath

00:17:31.720 the more obvious unrealisticness, the show depicts a really unrealistic view of what dieting can do

00:17:40.000 for you. So we're going to watch another clip. This is really rough. Sorry, not like the first

00:17:46.420 one. This one's really rough. This one's bad. The first one was like a walk in the park.

00:17:50.740 so they ask participants when they come in like the first day they're at their heaviest

00:17:57.740 to talk to their skinnier selves and so at the end of the show this is the second to last episode

00:18:05.220 when they're there's only i think five or six contestants left and they watch their heavier

00:18:10.260 selves talking to them now and so we're gonna watch this oh god it's bad you know it's been

00:18:18.240 a journey and you had to deal with a lot of pain during this process. There's no way I ever imagined

00:18:26.740 life would be like this. It's what I remind you. This is not what you are anymore. This is who you

00:18:34.720 were. You've already put in a lot of work. You've already gotten this far. You can keep going.

00:18:39.500 There's no need to stop. Stopping is what you do at home and you don't need to do that anymore.

00:18:43.660 Just remember the journey. Remember what you did. Remember the struggle that you did. Remember how

00:18:47.220 you felt today when you just felt not like yourself please don't forget all you've gone

00:18:52.840 through because this is the true you you're so much stronger now you're not this weak person

00:18:59.300 anymore you're my hero you're gonna be so happy and that's what you deserve you deserve to be

00:19:05.940 happy the mule's hooked up bud just load the wagon so i would like to crawl out of my skin

00:19:14.160 I know. I know. This whole idea of the real you is thin is such a quietly horrific and toxic

00:19:25.300 concept that like any fatter version of you than the way that you would like to see yourself as a

00:19:32.840 thin person is like a betrayal of yourself or a failure to be your true self is like the most 0.93

00:19:40.220 wild bullshit yeah you know me it's a rare thing that i'm at a loss for words yes i'm kind of at 0.93

00:19:46.620 a loss for words about this one all of these people do deserve happiness like they all seem 0.98

00:19:51.520 really nice yeah but they've just been like duped onto the show that is selling them this fantasy

00:19:57.180 about this future life that they're gonna have and they've had it drummed into them even before

00:20:00.860 they came on the show that sort of the 350 pound version of yourself is not yourself and that you

00:20:06.500 only deserve happiness if you're smaller. Yeah. I mean, listen, I, uh, I understand this. I am

00:20:14.120 a 350 pound version of myself and I know it's not the real me. I'm so sorry. I've been deceiving you

00:20:19.160 all this time. There was a tiny moment when I was, when I thought you were serious and I was like,

00:20:25.360 oh God, this podcast is taking a turn. You were like, oh no, we hit bedrock. I was going to start

00:20:30.920 playing the background music. Oh God. What I find so irresponsible about this is that this is the

00:20:36.360 inner monologue that most people do have when they're dieting. I'm going to be at the smaller

00:20:40.200 weight. I'm going to date somebody. I'm going to get a better job. Like people extend the trend

00:20:44.820 line and they envision this future for themselves. And then once you inevitably start gaining the

00:20:50.300 weight back, which happens in 95% of attempts to lose weight, then you feel like even more of a

00:20:56.220 failure because you're losing this life that you envisioned for yourself where you were a better

00:21:00.640 father and a better partner and all this insta improvement in the kind of person that you are.

00:21:06.360 And then you feel that slipping away.

00:21:07.880 And because everyone around you, usually people who have not tried to lose 100 pounds or more, are telling you how simple it is.

00:21:18.120 Yes.

00:21:18.420 So you also get the bonus feeling of, I'm not just a failure because I lost this sort of glimmering mirage of a life as a thin person.

00:21:27.180 But I'm also a failure because this thing that everyone is telling me is really simple to do is something that I am not doing.

00:21:33.420 Yeah, I just think it's really unethical to reinforce these views that basically the entire

00:21:37.860 population already has. There's no examples of someone on the show being like, hey, wait a

00:21:42.360 minute, I'm actually fine. Yeah, totally. My life is fine. I'm not a broken ass person.

00:21:47.340 And if those people are on the show, they're not showing those clips. 0.93

00:21:51.020 Oh, definitely not. Oh, yeah. So are you ready for reasons? It's trash. Number two,

00:21:55.800 always. I thought you're gonna say, are you ready for another clip? And I was gonna be like,

00:21:59.240 honestly maybe not let's tone those down mike they're really dark 0.97

00:22:04.400 i will totally take another reason it's trash let's go so reason number two is it's fake and

00:22:12.000 unethical so one of the things i really have been thankful for in the research for this is that

00:22:17.840 because the show has been on for so long we now have a couple contestants coming forward and being 0.66

00:22:22.980 like no this was trash like behind the scenes it's even more trash than it looks on tv so are 0.64

00:22:28.200 Are you familiar with Kai Hibbard? 0.98

00:22:29.820 I am.

00:22:30.520 Twitter pal, Kai Hibbard.

00:22:31.820 Yes.

00:22:32.360 A real dream scenario of a fat person who lost a bunch of weight and then figured out

00:22:36.420 how to still be in solidarity with people who are still fat.

00:22:39.120 Right.

00:22:39.740 A dream.

00:22:40.460 So she was the runner up in season three.

00:22:43.080 And she says that at the end of the season, she had lost so much weight that she wasn't

00:22:47.420 getting her period and her hair was falling out in clumps.

00:22:50.960 She had to like wear a beanie when she came home to see her boyfriend because she was

00:22:54.420 so embarrassed about like bald patches on her head.

00:22:56.100 this was profoundly bad for her being on the show. She says it's one of the biggest regrets of her

00:23:00.820 life. Yeah. I mean, those are all things that happen when you're caring for your health.

00:23:04.140 Yes, exactly. Classic sign of health. One thing I also thought was really interesting is as a

00:23:09.060 journalist, like one of the main things that you learn in journalism school is journalistic ethics.

00:23:12.880 It's not clear to me that there's any ethical code of conduct for reality TV. It's not quite

00:23:17.340 journalism, but it's like, it's not entertainment either because these are real people. But there's

00:23:21.940 There's no like reality TV show contestants bill of rights.

00:23:25.880 No, there's no, there doesn't appear to be any sort of ethical anything except for

00:23:29.840 what gets the most viewers in the most desirable demographic and makes the most money.

00:23:34.400 Yes.

00:23:34.660 For the lowest cost.

00:23:35.780 I mean, that's the other thing about reality TV, right?

00:23:37.920 Is if you make reality TV, you don't have to pay writers or as many writers.

00:23:41.440 You don't have to pay like all of these sort of like unionized positions.

00:23:45.080 You don't have to pay people to make television.

00:23:47.500 The real biggest loser is the unionized workforce of America.

00:23:51.940 So this is a quote from another dissident contestant.

00:23:55.780 Suzanne Mendonca, a contestant in season two, said that contestants would go to extremes to lose weight.

00:24:01.000 She said they would utilize amphetamines, water pills, diuretics, and throw up in the bathroom,

00:24:06.040 and claimed that Bob Harper told people to vomit to lose weight.

00:24:09.400 I vomited every single day, she said.

00:24:11.600 Good God. 0.99

00:24:12.420 A lot of the contestants that have come forward, like the few dissident contestants that we know about,

00:24:16.180 A lot of them said that they just had really crushing student debt and they wanted the $250,000 reward for winning the show.

00:24:23.520 Right. This is like where the show gets revealed to quietly be like The Hunger Games or like The Running Man or something.

00:24:29.680 Like some dystopian future where you're like, you just drown people in debt and then you make them lose weight on television.

00:24:35.860 Yeah.

00:24:36.280 Right? Like it's just so icky.

00:24:38.300 There's also another thing that Kai Hibbert said.

00:24:40.140 There's no mental health counseling.

00:24:41.780 Like the show sort of hints that there is, but it appears that the only actual mental health interventions that they have is that all of the contestants take personality tests, like long, detailed personality tests, basically so the producers can know, are they going to blow up at each other?

00:24:57.440 Like who's going to be a good reality TV show contestant, essentially?

00:25:00.600 But after that, there's no mental health counseling on the show. 0.97

00:25:04.280 And so in season 17, in episode two, which is one of the random episodes that I watched, this woman was talking about how she was homeless and she was sleeping on a friend's couch and her, like, five-year-old son wandered outside and fucking drowned. 0.94

00:25:18.700 What? 0.96

00:25:19.180 Yes.

00:25:19.680 And she's talking about, like, I couldn't protect him.

00:25:22.020 I'm a terrible mother.

00:25:23.360 And Bob, like, tries to comfort her.

00:25:25.680 He says something that's actually pretty good.

00:25:27.180 he says terrible things happen to people who deserve happiness which is like one of the only

00:25:32.260 semi-human behaviors i've seen him display on that show but then when she's like she's this

00:25:36.700 woman is obviously extremely distraught and then he like grabs her hand and he's like you're gonna

00:25:41.120 make something of yourself now that you're here oh and it's like oh she doesn't need to lose 20 0.92

00:25:45.940 pounds dude she needs fucking real trauma counseling and like maybe some like social 0.96

00:25:50.340 safety net stuff so she's not homeless any normal person with normal professional ethics would have 0.98

00:25:55.120 been like let's shut this down and like get this woman the help that she needs uh-huh also what's

00:25:59.700 so interesting to me about the structure of the show too is it's not just that all these people

00:26:03.360 are living in a house together and they're all gonna you know support each other in weight loss

00:26:06.460 etc it's a contest it's a reality show so eventually this woman who used to be homeless

00:26:11.360 and whose son died she didn't lose enough weight so she got kicked off so it's like even as a sort

00:26:15.900 of like weight loss deal with our issues around food exercise that's not the exercise because 0.99

00:26:21.160 it's a fucking contest. This is not how like alcohol rehab works. Like whoever can abstain 0.94

00:26:27.080 for the longest days gets to stay and everybody else gets kicked off. Like even if you believe

00:26:31.560 that losing weight is imperative, being in a fucking contest is not the way to do it. 0.99

00:26:36.040 Jesus Christ. 0.99

00:26:37.020 So the last thing that Kai Hibbard said that sent me down a rabbit hole about the fake and

00:26:41.100 unethicalness of the show is that she mentioned very sort of casually that in this ranch house

00:26:46.740 where they're all supposed to be barely eating and they're trapped there and they have to lose

00:26:50.220 all this weight. Most of the food that's in the house is from products that are sponsoring the

00:26:56.260 show. It's like Jell-O and like Kraft mac and cheese. By far, the funniest scenes on the show

00:27:03.780 are when they try to give diet advice to the participants, which are actually few and far

00:27:07.780 between. This content analysis found that almost all of the weight loss that was prescribed was

00:27:13.180 exercise. Like they're just exercising constantly and they don't talk about diet that much. But

00:27:16.640 when they do talk about diet, there will be scenes that sort of pretend to be like, oh,

00:27:21.540 I just pop in by the ranch house, like seeing what's up with Janine or whatever. And then Bob

00:27:26.200 will come and be like, Janine, did you know about this Quaker oat cereal that only has 235 calories?

00:27:33.160 And like, she's very clearly acting. And she's like, no, Bob, I hadn't heard of it. It's like

00:27:37.220 infomercial acting. They're like, that sounds great, Bob. This will help me with my needs.

00:27:41.740 What are the different flavors? And he's like, maple syrup and brown sugar. Oh, wow,

00:27:46.200 bob it's like really pop chips are a sustainable alternative to greasy potato chips and you're

00:27:54.120 like is anybody falling for this like these aren't food tips like none of the foods that 0.60

00:27:57.880 they're prescribing are particularly fucking healthy they're all like packaged microwaved

00:28:02.180 whatever little foods so like this is the double genius of the show is that not only are they 0.73

00:28:06.640 making money from advertisers but the show itself is an advertisement right this was also sort of

00:28:10.960 the era when there was all this talk in tv sort of production about quote-unquote vertical

00:28:16.560 integration yes it's such a weird like peek behind the curtain of like it's all a profit grab goodbye

00:28:23.800 like according to new york times article the biggest loser had the most product placements

00:28:30.180 of any tv show on the air in 2011 they had 533 placements well it's also one of those things

00:28:36.840 where it's like listen the diet industry is extremely profitable yes even now that it has

00:28:41.920 sort of changed its name to the wellness industry there are just like a bajillion things where you're

00:28:46.860 like it's oatmeal it's just oatmeal we're familiar with its work yeah that's right okay so reason 0.98

00:28:53.660 number three that the biggest loser is trash is it's abusive and horrible yeah you knew it was 0.95

00:29:00.160 coming yeah we're not gonna watch a clip but i am gonna send you a really horrifying picture 0.98

00:29:03.700 oh okay here we go no i know so what we're seeing i can't remember this contestant's name

00:29:09.640 rachel frederickson rachel frederickson so you're seeing a before and after photo of i would say a 1.00

00:29:16.740 mid-fat lady and she's wearing sort of like biggest loser like workout shoes and bike shorts 1.00

00:29:22.780 and a branded t-shirt yeah sassy little hands-on hips pose they also make them look like shit in 1.00

00:29:28.820 all the before photos that's like another thing they always have them in like oversized t-shirts 0.98

00:29:32.440 I was going to say, it's almost as if they're trying to cultivate an image.

00:29:35.540 Yeah, exactly.

00:29:38.080 And then the, so that's the photo on the left is the before photo, the one that like every

00:29:42.940 fat person everywhere has come to know to dread.

00:29:45.980 And then the photo on the right is her with her hair blown out and done and highlighted. 0.99

00:29:51.820 She's wearing a full face of makeup.

00:29:54.000 She's wearing like silvery, champagne-y, glittery, like mini dress, cocktail dress, maybe.

00:29:59.920 she looks like she is ready for like an event and she is extremely thin yes she's thin enough that 0.70

00:30:07.460 like uh when you see tabloid photos where they just go like scary skinny and then have photos 0.97

00:30:14.600 of you know celine dion or nicole ritchie or whoever it is at the moment that they're sort

00:30:20.740 of like zooming in salaciously on like knobby knees or bony elbows or what have you like that 0.75

00:30:27.100 is the look that she is giving she's a size zero slash two here jesus so when she started the show 1.00

00:30:33.120 she was 260 pounds and she ends the show at 105 yeah and it's 60 of her body weight a totally

00:30:40.260 sustainable amount of weight to lose in a period of a few months sort of what made this such a big

00:30:45.440 deal is that they do you know the six months of the ranch and then all the contestants go home

00:30:50.200 like the final three four contestants go home and they come back a couple months later and you know

00:30:56.040 you see have they gained weight in the interim period have they lost more weight in the interim

00:30:59.620 period like can they maintain the biggest loser lifestyle so she is unique and remarkable for 0.94

00:31:05.900 losing a lot more weight during this interregnum period which is when everybody else usually ends 1.00

00:31:11.400 up gaining weight or maintaining what's fucked up about this is that she obviously like she looks 0.99

00:31:16.200 worryingly thin in this photo yeah but this also triggers a round of people talking about her body 0.98

00:31:23.500 like she ends up on the cover of people magazine with the headline too thin too fast right and it's

00:31:31.180 people magazine who i would not necessarily trust implicitly with a sensitive conversation about 0.96

00:31:35.700 eating disorders yeah no kidding you know yeah like to me it's like what do you fucking expect 0.98

00:31:40.840 like she's in a fucking weight loss contest yeah of course she's losing a ton of weight like of 1.00

00:31:45.220 course this is making her like an unhealthy competitor like that's what you want her to do 1.00

00:31:50.300 It's like she's unhealthy and like we're worried about her because she's too thin. 1.00

00:31:53.740 But all of the behaviors that got her there, we weren't worried about her.

00:31:56.980 Like she admits in the interview in People Magazine that she's working out four times a day. 0.97

00:32:01.560 That's bad, like regardless of whether she's 105 pounds or like 140.

00:32:06.600 This is also upheld in sort of the way that eating disorders are diagnosed even.

00:32:10.780 Like you and I can talk about this and know that disordered behaviors are disordered behaviors.

00:32:15.060 But in order to be diagnosed with anorexia, you currently need to have a BMI of under 17.

00:32:22.340 This is one of those cases where, again, like when she was a fat person doing it, we were like, get it, go, you got this, right?

00:32:29.320 We're applauding while it's on television.

00:32:31.100 And then when she sort of hits a thin weight, we're like, uh-oh.

00:32:34.180 Right.

00:32:34.500 And also, as long as we're moving toward the goal of weight loss, which of course is imperative, whatever the means we use to get there are fine.

00:32:42.000 Yep.

00:32:42.160 This is an excerpt from an interview with Kai Hibbard.

00:32:44.660 She says, they would say things to contestants like, you're going to die before your children

00:32:49.020 grow up.

00:32:49.800 You're going to die just like your mother. 1.00

00:32:52.120 We've picked out your fat person coffin. 1.00

00:32:54.740 One production assistant told a contestant to take up smoking because it would cut her 0.99

00:32:58.580 appetite in half.

00:32:59.400 Jesus Christ.

00:33:00.900 There's this very pervasive message throughout the show that fat people cannot trust their

00:33:05.380 bodies. 0.99

00:33:06.120 When a fat person says, like, my knees hurt, it's like, shut up, keep running. 0.99

00:33:10.120 When fat people say, like, this is too much or I'm not comfortable with this, we shouldn't 0.98

00:33:13.300 believe them because that's the weakness that got them to this place in the first place.

00:33:16.760 Right. Fat people are not allowed to have boundaries. 0.94

00:33:19.340 Exactly. Injuries and things like joint pain or being short of breath. The 63-year-old guy 1.00

00:33:24.800 passes out within five minutes of getting on a treadmill in the first episode. There's like,

00:33:29.580 well, yeah, it's weakness leaving the body. Get back up there.

00:33:32.000 Right. And even like a good faith, like if you assume good intentions from the show.

00:33:37.260 No. Yes.

00:33:38.240 Hard to do. 1.00

00:33:39.180 There's in the most recent season, like the wellness reboot season, there's a woman who fucks up her knee doing box jumps. 0.52

00:33:46.920 And she's then like two minutes later seen on a rowing machine with an ice pack on her knee.

00:33:52.680 Yeah.

00:33:54.140 This is not good.

00:33:55.720 Also, a rowing machine is not not using your knee.

00:34:00.640 Oh, yeah.

00:34:00.900 Good point.

00:34:01.680 I hadn't even thought about that.

00:34:03.120 So it's no surprise that all of this abuse has produced a lot of injuries over the years.

00:34:08.700 In 2009, two contestants on the same season were hospitalized from basically forcing them to run

00:34:15.700 and one of them passed out. There was one contestant who got stress fractures in her feet

00:34:19.500 from being forced to do these jumps. Right. We're just concerned about your health,

00:34:23.260 which is why we're pushing you to the point of kidney failure, hospitalization. And wasn't

00:34:27.000 somebody like flown in a helicopter to us, like life flighted basically? They called it heat

00:34:32.620 exhaustion, but according to Kai Hibbard, that was basically from being forced to run. Good Lord.

00:34:37.360 So reason four, why Biggest Loser is trash, people gain all the weight back. 0.62

00:34:43.400 Yeah, there was like a big, big, big New York Times story about this.

00:34:47.920 Yes.

00:34:48.240 My recollection is that what they found is that it permanently damages their metabolisms

00:34:52.400 and makes it almost impossible to lose weight in the future.

00:34:56.380 So at the average weight that contestants were at six years after the show,

00:35:02.420 they should be burning around 2,600 calories a day, just like existing.

00:35:06.500 but they're only burning 2,000, which means if they eat more than 2,000 calories a day,

00:35:11.500 they will gain weight. And this is six years after. So what's amazing is they actually did

00:35:16.020 the same study 30 weeks after, so almost a year after they left The Biggest Loser. And then they

00:35:21.960 did it again six years afterwards. And their metabolisms actually got slower over that time,

00:35:27.540 even as they gained a lot of the weight back. This is sort of like, we sent these adults to

00:35:32.180 fat camp. We filmed it so you can watch. And then we returned them to the lives that they were

00:35:37.140 leading. And now we're dismayed that they haven't been able to keep it up. And we've decided to

00:35:41.720 sort of attribute that to their character or their emotional eating or some kind of invisible

00:35:48.400 pathology, right? That there's some kind of character weakness that must be leading them

00:35:53.560 to weight gain. Not that, hey, science actually doesn't know fully what makes some people fat

00:36:00.460 and some people thin. And it is so much more comforting to approach that from a sort of lens

00:36:05.600 of pathologizing fat people and standing in comfortable judgment of them, right, than it is

00:36:10.660 to go, actually, this is really complex. And some stuff we know and some stuff we don't. Yeah. And

00:36:15.980 sometimes people are fat, and that might be okay. Because again, then you don't have a show. Whoops.

00:36:20.480 I mean, one thing that did stick out to me was the fact that on average, the participants six

00:36:25.820 years later, we're still in the obese category. So the average weight of participants when they

00:36:31.960 got onto the show was 305 pounds. And by the end of the six years, all of the diet, lifestyle,

00:36:37.660 whatever, gaining, losing weight stuff, the average is five foot eight and 192 pounds.

00:36:44.040 What's really interesting to me about that is that anyone putting up those numbers would go

00:36:49.120 to the doctor and get weighed and the doctor would start that conversation with, you need to lose

00:36:53.500 weight, right? Because according to the numbers, they do need to lose weight. But the thing that

00:36:56.920 fat people have been saying forever is just fucking ask people before you have the conversation of 1.00

00:37:02.860 like, did you know you need to lose weight? Ask people like, were you recently on a game show 0.99

00:37:06.800 where you lost 50% of your body weight and then gained 25% of it back? That's really helpful

00:37:12.020 context for like the kind of advice that your doctor should be giving you.

00:37:16.380 Right. And ask fat people what they've been eating. And when they tell you,

00:37:20.880 believe them. Part of the reason that many doctors don't ask fat people questions about

00:37:26.700 why we're fat or what we've done to sort of interact with our own fatness or try and get

00:37:31.560 thin or whatever is that they fundamentally just don't believe our answers. So it feels like sort

00:37:37.580 of a useless exercise, right? Right. Okay, last reason. Are you ready? Ready. Ready as I'll ever

00:37:42.300 be. You knew it was coming. The fifth reason why The Biggest Loser is trash is the effect that it

00:37:49.220 has on like the rest of society. Like not just the people that are on the show, but everybody 0.58

00:37:53.120 watching it. Gross. The Biggest Loser has been controversial for quite a while. And there's

00:37:58.460 quite a few articles where people defend the show, like Jillian Michaels in interviews,

00:38:04.240 various TV executives, producers. And the defense is always what we've heard a million times on the

00:38:09.840 show, that it's raising awareness of the obesity epidemic and it's inspiring people to lose weight.

00:38:15.860 Who is unaware of the obesity epidemic?

00:38:20.280 Can you show me the people who are like, oh, I didn't know.

00:38:23.040 People think it's healthier to be thin than to be fat.

00:38:26.040 So this is from a New York Times article.

00:38:28.360 J.D. Roth, an executive producer of the series who created its current format, says that

00:38:32.140 while the show was extreme, it needs to be extreme, in my opinion.

00:38:36.300 For some of these people, this is their last chance, he said.

00:38:39.440 And in a country right now that's wrestling with health care issues and the billions of

00:38:43.100 dollars that are spent on obesity issues per year. In a way, what a public service to have

00:38:47.960 a show that inspires people to be healthier. Getting 100% to keep the weight off has never

00:38:52.920 been the goal. The goal is can we inspire people in America to make a change in their life? And in

00:38:59.120 that, we're batting a thousand. Are you? There are more fat people now than there ever have been

00:39:06.100 before. Are you making a positive change? Are you doing what you think you're doing? This is what I

00:39:11.220 wrote in my notes i wrote are you though this is not something that i've seen documented i mean

00:39:16.720 you know there's been various academic dissections of the effect of the biggest loser and all these

00:39:21.620 other weight loss reality shows there's a kaiser family foundation sort of analysis like literature

00:39:27.120 review of all the different studies have been done and they all do the same thing that we saw

00:39:32.080 in the president's physical fitness test where they weigh the pros and cons of this show and of

00:39:37.740 this kind of TV. And all of the pros are potential things. And all of the cons are actual things.

00:39:45.200 Look at all the stuff we could do, but haven't done for the 50 years that we've been doing this

00:39:49.960 garbage test that everybody hates. Like, no. This is an excerpt from the Kaiser Family Foundation 0.51

00:39:55.760 report. Reality TV has the potential to provide inspiration for lifestyle changes such as weight

00:40:01.320 loss or smoking cessation. Reality TV also gives a voice to normal everyday people rather than

00:40:07.020 stars, provides exposure to a broad range of human experiences not available in other programs,

00:40:12.580 and may also provide viewers with a sense of personal validation, an awareness that there

00:40:16.780 are people out there like me with the same kinds of problems that I have. No, it doesn't. Fuck

00:40:22.600 off. What are the other health issues for which we weigh potential benefits against actual harms? 1.00

00:40:29.640 The potential for the biggest loser to inspire people to lose weight. It's like,

00:40:33.400 okay, well, there's studies on this. Does this inspire people to lose? No.

00:40:36.960 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:40:37.820 So why would that even be relevant, this potential, when we know it does not inspire people to lose

00:40:43.020 weight?

00:40:43.440 There have been some studies on looking at the effects of the sort of, quote unquote,

00:40:48.580 obesity epidemic messaging on how folks think about fat people in particular.

00:40:53.760 Right.

00:40:54.020 And what they found is that all of that messaging increases bias toward fat people. Surprise,

00:41:00.380 surprise if you call fat people a disease that is somehow threatening your health

00:41:05.720 it's not gonna go great for your perception of those people i'm curious about if anyone has done 0.92

00:41:11.480 any looking into the effects of watching shows like the biggest loser did you find anything

00:41:16.500 related to that there's actually two studies where they measure people's attitudes regarding

00:41:22.020 fatness and fat people and then they show them an episode of the biggest loser and then they test

00:41:25.940 them again one of them finds that it doesn't give everybody fat phobic attitudes but if you have

00:41:32.680 existing fat phobic attitudes it will make them worse yeah that makes sense it also seems like

00:41:37.660 the thinner you are the more likely you are to hold those views so it seems to have this sort

00:41:42.560 of radicalizing effect on thin people that watch the biggest loser there's another one that finds

00:41:48.360 it doesn't necessarily affect fat phobia but it does affect how controllable you think weight is

00:41:54.860 So at the root of anti-fat bias is this idea that people can control their body weight like Christian Bale gains and loses pounds for movie roles all the time.

00:42:04.520 So why can't fat people do that?

00:42:06.000 And so when you watch an episode of The Biggest Loser, it reinforces the message that like, oh, weight is easily manipulable.

00:42:13.740 And, you know, all they have to do is like eat better and exercise more and then they'll be small.

00:42:17.200 And so I don't really have to engage with whatever shitty beliefs I have about that. 0.81

00:42:21.300 Well, also, all of those like actors gaining and losing significant amounts of weight sort of stories when you read the interviews with the Christian Bales and whoever else's of the world, what they're talking about is like, for dinner, I melted a pint of Ben and Jerry's and drank it. 0.69

00:42:37.720 Right.

00:42:37.820 And then surprise, surprise, when they stopped doing that, they lose weight, right?

00:42:42.420 Like, that's not a one to one for my experience as a fat person who has been fat since grade school, middle school.

00:42:49.560 Like, come on, guys.

00:42:50.440 I also think that even on its own terms, Biggest Loser does not motivate people to exercise and

00:42:57.720 change their diets. Because first of all, there's really no information on the show about healthy

00:43:01.800 diets. Like it's not actually teaching people how to cook or like anything that people would

00:43:06.380 actually need to know. Like here's how to saute some carrots for dinner. And then when it comes

00:43:11.200 to exercise, there's some actually really good studies of the way that it depicts exercise on

00:43:17.420 the show because a really important aspect of this is that exercise is always cast as torture

00:43:22.540 exercise is your punishment for being fat yeah like that is the overwhelming message that you

00:43:29.080 get about exercise from the show and most of the exercise that people are doing on the show 0.96

00:43:33.360 is fucking miserable it's like box jumps and like lifting weights above your arms 50 times and like 0.75

00:43:39.320 i say this as somebody who goes to the gym pretty frequently not everyone likes going to the gym 0.99

00:43:43.840 And there's never anything on The Biggest Loser for like, hey, maybe you really like biking.

00:43:48.460 Like maybe for you, go for a long bike ride and listen to a podcast.

00:43:51.440 Or maybe for you, it's team sports.

00:43:53.000 Maybe play field hockey with some friends on Wednesdays every week.

00:43:56.040 Like there's no exploration of how a lot of people really like forms of exercise, but they don't know which forms of exercise they like. 0.97

00:44:03.860 The only way you ever see exercise on the show is at a gym where you have to fucking pay for it.

00:44:07.980 And with like someone yelling in your face as you're throwing this like fake rubber ball on a wall back and forth. 0.97

00:44:13.040 Yeah. The biggest loser is essentially just recreating fat kids experience of PE. 0.98

00:44:20.640 The president's physical fitness test.

00:44:22.000 And the president's physical fitness test, right? Like all of it, right? Which is just like,

00:44:25.920 you are being publicly humiliated, exercise is your penance for daring to have this body.

00:44:32.400 Yes.

00:44:32.680 And you have to punish yourself in public so that people know how apologetic you are.

00:44:40.340 Yeah. I will say for my own self, the thing that helped me figure out what kinds of movement I liked was being able to do those away from other people. Because as it turns out, the thing that made it fucking miserable for me were people who would stare at me while I exercised, the people who would say, good for you, you'll get there. The thing that was hardest for me was always the sort of social response to a body like mine in motion.

00:45:07.880 Yeah. In all of the other research about this, because there's also research like this qualitative research on sort of watching The Biggest Loser with fat people and doing like a content analysis on just like their reactions is watching The Biggest Loser has the same effect on fat people as fat shaming in that it increases their motivation to lose weight, but it doesn't increase their ability.

00:45:30.620 So watching The Biggest Loser and having like Jillian Michaels look at the camera and shout 0.52

00:45:34.600 at them, all the shit we saw in the clip, that makes people think like, oh my God, I 0.98

00:45:39.340 have to lose weight. 1.00

00:45:40.100 I'm going to die if I don't lose weight.

00:45:41.520 It's so imperative for me to lose weight.

00:45:43.200 But it doesn't give them enough money to buy fresh fruit at the grocery store.

00:45:46.800 It doesn't give them a gym membership.

00:45:48.620 It doesn't actually give them any counseling for whatever other issues they have.

00:45:51.760 Like it doesn't actually do anything.

00:45:53.800 Totally.

00:45:54.520 And there are different sort of shades of motivation.

00:45:58.600 Yeah. 1.00

00:45:58.760 When I have watched The Biggest Loser, the motivation is I don't want that lady to yell 1.00

00:46:03.620 at me ever. 1.00

00:46:04.940 Right?

00:46:05.240 The motivation isn't to lose weight for my own good or my own health.

00:46:09.480 It is to avoid abuse, which is not a great sustainable kind of motivation.

00:46:15.360 No, you just have to hire Jillian Michaels to be in your house at all times.

00:46:18.140 I don't want that.

00:46:19.300 She's on her way.

00:46:20.020 Aubrey, she'll be there in 15 minutes. 0.97

00:46:21.380 Is that now for us to send her to your house?

00:46:22.780 so last little section we're gonna do like a little epilogue because i thought this was kind

00:46:28.900 of funny biggest loser just sort of ended up petering out every basically every season just

00:46:34.840 had fewer and fewer viewers it was like 10 million then 8 million then 6 million and by the end it

00:46:39.080 only had about 5 million viewers per episode which was half of what it was when it started

00:46:43.460 and so reality shows don't really have like series finales in the way that you know like

00:46:47.820 supernatural or buffy do but then it basically died in 2017 and then they brought it back on a

00:46:54.900 different network it's now on usa as like a wellness show like the new super touchy feely

00:47:01.860 version of it so we're gonna watch a clip you know you know the clip so jillian michaels is also she 0.97

00:47:08.740 has become this massive brand in her own right based on the popularity of the show mean white

00:47:13.880 Oprah yeah exactly and so this is an interview that she gave last year wait is this the Lizzo

00:47:21.760 interview it's the Lizzo interview oh god I know we're not gonna watch the whole thing but it's

00:47:27.420 like uh yeah totally it's so bad okay here we go well you've said before that you think um political

00:47:34.040 correctness has gone too far in the health and fitness world what did you mean by that

00:47:37.560 Political correctness has just, like, come so—I can't even—I think it's insane.

00:47:43.620 And it's like the pendulum, just as far as it swings in one direction, it swings back in the other, right? 1.00

00:47:50.000 And you've got these crazy extremes, whereas she's too fat to be a pop star.

00:47:54.100 When you say things like that, you know, then there's going to be—you should never be able to say things like that, right?

00:47:58.380 But for years, people were.

00:47:59.560 They could fat shame, and they could exclude people, and they could make people feel less than.

00:48:03.740 We should always be inclusive.

00:48:05.760 But you cannot glorify obesity.

00:48:10.000 It's dangerous.

00:48:10.980 It kills people.

00:48:12.060 It's the number one cause of bankruptcy in our country.

00:48:14.760 So there's a middle ground here. 1.00

00:48:16.960 Now it's like, oh, that woman is 250 pounds. 1.00

00:48:20.400 Good for her. 0.99

00:48:21.360 And it's like, 250 pounds, 999 times out of 1,000 is going to mean heart disease, cancer, diabetes, autoimmune issues, and early death.

00:48:33.100 Like, mm, mm, mm, mm.

00:48:35.400 I have to say, I've personally found,

00:48:38.280 and I love celebrities like Lizzo or Ashley Graham

00:48:40.660 who are really preaching self-acceptance.

00:48:42.500 I love her music, 100%.

00:48:43.940 I don't know anything about her. 0.98

00:48:45.020 I'm sure she's a cool, awesome chick. 0.75

00:48:47.020 Yeah, and I love that they're putting images out there

00:48:48.700 that we normally don't get to see of bodies

00:48:50.180 that we don't get to see being celebrated.

00:48:52.240 But why are we celebrating her body?

00:48:54.760 Why does it matter?

00:48:55.900 That's what I'm saying.

00:48:56.800 Like, why aren't we celebrating her music? 0.99

00:48:58.840 Because it isn't going to be awesome if she gets diabetes. 1.00

00:49:03.100 Wow. 1.00

00:49:04.120 She is Satan, dude. 0.99

00:49:05.300 I really like that Jillian Michaels, the patron saint of horrific fat shaming, is like, 1.00

00:49:11.720 we definitely shouldn't fat shame.

00:49:13.960 And it's a real shame that people used to do that, but now they've stopped and it's

00:49:17.600 gone too far.

00:49:18.860 I know.

00:49:19.160 Ask any fat person if they feel like there's too much acceptance of fat people right now.

00:49:25.260 Where did the fat shaming come from, Jillian?

00:49:27.160 Was there a particular TV show that you could point to?

00:49:29.480 Or like a particular person on a particular TV show?

00:49:32.340 can you be specific i also will have to i i have to say just on the extremely petty level

00:49:38.480 i love how much of this interview she spends sort of sputtering and searching for words

00:49:43.260 this is what you get whenever somebody says i think political correctness is out of control

00:49:47.020 and you say what do you mean you never get a clear answer tell me more adam carolla 0.99

00:49:53.100 just speak up man it's also it's kind of funny because you can tell the host fucking hates her 0.96

00:50:00.800 and the host is like the host does very well at like trapping her it's nice to see somebody else 0.97

00:50:06.780 who just has like deep contempt for her and is like what what can i make her say on tv that's 1.00

00:50:11.540 gonna make her look like shit look if you can get jillian michaels to shit on lizzo the person that 1.00

00:50:16.640 like everyone loves right now i know like can you also get her to talk shit about like beyonce 1.00

00:50:23.120 does she have thoughts on mr rogers that she'd like to share what else can we get her to talk 0.92

00:50:27.980 about also there is this sort of attitude that she in particular has really fed into which is

00:50:34.160 just like fat people will necessarily become diabetic hypertensive whatever else that's a 0.96

00:50:41.040 fully made up number bam i mean i think the jillian michaels thing is the perfect encapsulation of

00:50:46.220 this sort of wellness reboot of the biggest loser because i mean she's not on new show but i think

00:50:52.720 the entire project feels to me like a version of i'm not fat shaming but yeah and then you just say

00:50:59.600 something fat shaming the new season of the biggest loser is still a weight loss competition

00:51:04.700 you get kicked off if you do not lose enough pounds there is no way to reboot that to make

00:51:11.260 it not about weight loss it's literally a weight loss contest but mike they have a group conversation

00:51:16.820 with bob harper who pretends to be a therapist here's what i kind of feel like about the biggest

00:51:24.280 loser it feels kind of like america's id what do you mean it is what all of us wish we didn't

00:51:30.760 believe about fat people and what we wish we didn't find entertaining as we're sort of shifting 0.74

00:51:36.360 out of diets for everyone to quote-unquote wellness for everyone which is like the same

00:51:41.260 thing yes that there is this sort of a little bit of like rapprochement about like uh hey wait a

00:51:47.500 minute maybe we shouldn't have all been this into this thing but also i don't want to talk about how

00:51:52.420 into it i was right and the reason that it held appeal is that fundamentally i think a lot of us

00:51:57.760 do believe fat people should be yelled at until we get thin it's also interesting the way that

00:52:02.580 the fact that it's a reality tv show with the giant air quotes that that comes with gives people

00:52:08.980 a shield for what's actually being depicted on the show because if it was a fictional tv show

00:52:14.480 about a bunch of fat people who couldn't stop eating and their weight defines their life and 1.00

00:52:19.220 they're so depressed and if they only lost weight they'd be happy you'd be like fuck you man like 0.99

00:52:23.620 nobody's that simplistic right yeah but the fact that it's a reality tv show and these are real 1.00

00:52:27.860 contestants and quote-unquote real dramas every week it gives you this cover for watching a show

00:52:33.700 that is basically depicting fat people as all of the negative stereotypes that skinny people have

00:52:38.740 about fat people. Right. They are gluttonous. They are lazy. They are clumsy. They can't do

00:52:43.460 the exercise. They won't do what they're told. But it's packaging them up as, well, look, it's

00:52:48.020 reality. So it's okay to be depicting this. And all of this is designed to make thin people feel

00:52:53.540 calmer and better about their lives. Yeah. None of this is designed to be viewed by fat people.

00:52:58.680 We are immaterial. Yes. And me and my boyfriend, when we were watching it, we were trying to count

00:53:02.860 the scenes where people weren't crying. The only emotions that anybody on the show has

00:53:08.320 are crying and like panting, right? It's like they're doing exercise or they're revealing

00:53:13.800 something extremely personal and deep and dark about themselves. Everything is just like misery

00:53:19.440 and CrossFit. So that is our Biggest Loser episode. I feel both gross and like a metaphorical

00:53:27.980 weight has been lifted, not lost, but lifted, which is just like, I don't know, it makes me

00:53:33.080 feel better to go back through this stuff and talk about why it's constructed the way that it's

00:53:37.920 constructed. Because it's sort of like the man behind the curtain. It's like seeing the great

00:53:42.380 and powerful Oz where you're like, just a mean lady who wants to yell at Lizzo on TV. That's all

00:53:48.260 it is. The idea that we're ascribing some kind of altruism to a like network TV reality show

00:53:57.660 that is just taping people yelling at other people until they throw up.

00:54:02.320 This is not an ideological venture, guys.

00:54:05.700 I mean, when you put it like that, Aubrey, then it sounds bad.

00:54:27.660 Thank you.

Maintenance Phase - January 19, 2021

The Biggest Loser

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