You’d probably have to be from another planet not to know what The Biggest Loser is all about. A bunch of seriously obese men and women are launched into extreme food deprivation, and exercise regimes so harsh that, in the words of Ed Martin on MediaVillage.com “Half of these people looked like they were going to have heart attacks, the other half like they were on the verge of strokes”. But with overweight and obesity rates rising, and death rates caused by being fat and/or inactive going through the roof, isn’t this show at least DOING something? The problem is that what the show claims it’s about (healthy weight loss) and what it actually demonstrates (the most dangerous method with the highest failure rate) is doing double damage to everyone who watches it and gets taken in by it. The faster loser is the fastest fat regainer ------------------------------------------------------------ As you can imagine in a world where human fatties have governments and health scientists apoplectic with worry, it’s not surprising that there’s been a massive amount of research on the effectiveness of various approaches to weight loss. All around the world, in every civilised country where research has been undertaken, it is categorically proven that dieting and exercise programs not only don’t work, but they make people fatter! Over 95% of people who go on a diet put the weight back (and more) within 3 years, and over 98% of people who lose weight through an exercise program put the weight back on (and more) within 1 year! Just look at Matt Hoover’s growing girth since he took out the title of Biggest Loser in 2005. In 2006 he had really bulked up, and now in 2007 there he is complete with big double chin. No-one can lose weight that fast and not wreck their metabolic rate and their general health. Rapid weight loss is NOT fat loss ------------------------------------------------- Any health scientist will tell you that it’s impossible to lose or gain much more than 1 kilo of fat in a week. And yet contestants on The Biggest Loser regularly report massive weekly losses (25 lbs) and Matt even had a weekly gain of 12 lbs! So what’s going on? Well I can tell you they absolutely didn’t lose or gain much fat. What they lost or gained was most likely fluid, and you know what happens when you lose that much fluid that quickly? Your metabolic rate drops like a stone, amongst other serious health effects. This is what happens when people go on a low-carb diet. Carbs help retain water, so naturally when you drop them you dehydrate. Carbs are also absolutely essential for retention of muscle mass, and if you lose muscle mass (which is highly likely if you’ve suddenly cut your calories) your metabolic rate will plunge even lower. No wonder people put back weight so fast, and end up fatter than ever, and often sick and exhausted from fatigue. The Biggest Loser punishes people for doing healthy things ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Want to know a great way to turn people off exercise? Force them to have such a negative, stomach-turning, painful example of it that every time they think of being active, they actually feel sick. Want to know a great way to turn people off exercise? Watch them struggle and then scream at and insult them. Make them feel guilty and pathetic for not doing better. Compare them with others and make them feel inadequate. Only praise them when they’ve done it to the point of pain or collapse. Want to know a great way to get people really addicted to unhealthy, fatty, sugary food? Totally deprive them of it, because food deprivation is notorious for creating food cravings. And while you’re at it, taunt them with their favourite foods just so you can really turn that addiction scale to the max! The Biggest Loser is not reality --------------------------------------------- Millions of people tune into The Biggest Lose every week, and you only have to visit one of the many web forums that have sprung up to see the tragedy of masses of people actually believing that this is a valid approach to losing weight. They rarely understand that the “Losers” are under 24-hour-a-day watch, by a whole team of people. That the “Losers” don’t have any kind of day-day-life, aren’t at a job, aren’t being part of a family and in fact aren’t even a part of a normal community. They’re not learning any life habits at all that are transferable to the real, outside world. Viewers rarely have the knowledge that some of the “Losers” are regularly purging and vomiting in an effort to win the big bucks, or at least not “let down” their team. Nevertheless it’s so sad to read the hatred that is flung at contestants who are seen as inadequate merely for doing something as harmless as eating a Mars Bar. It’s a beautiful but awful repetition of that infamous study of “blue eyes/brown eyes” where people were taught to brutalise others who didn’t fit into an arbitrary classification. The Biggest Loser does not meet basic guidelines for healthy eating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Despite the show’s lip service to healthy practice, even the show’s own medical consultants admit the program puts people at risk, turfing out Jules Condon and Sam Birrell because of danger to their health (heart problems and deep vein thrombosis). Sadly, these two were so brainwashed that they actually wanted to continue! Nutritionist Kathleen Zelman points out that what the Blue Team eats has inadequate levels of complex carbohydrates, and that its low-carb regime will cause muscle loss, particularly when paired with a heavy activity level. She also says the Red Team eats too few calories to sustain the workouts and fails National Academy of Science Guidelines on carbs, proteins and fats. Dr Michael Dansinger, a medical consultant on the 2nd series, himself points out that the dangerously-low calorie intake can’t be replicated safely at home. Scientific studies suggest that weight gain due to dieting is around 6 billion kilos per nnum ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That’s an awful lot of fat! But it’s true. The average dieter actually gains around 5 kilos of fat a year, and it’s estimated there are 1.5 billion diets in the world at any time. The Biggest Loser is very much to blame for a growing portion of that. Diets are making us sick and ruining lives ------------------------------------------------------------- Studies consistently show that dieting has severe health and other impact on our lives: ** Diets cause people to gain weight through lowered metabolic rate ** Diets almost always result in reduced nutrition because they restrict food variety ** Dieting impacts on mood because of the interplay of psychological deprivation on hormone production, frequently causing depression or anxiety ** Dieting also lowers or wipes out your libido ** Dieting suppresses your immune system ** Your lowered metabolic rate makes it harder to exercise and in fact you may develop fatigue syndromes ** Food deprivation causes food cravings, so that every diet you go on adds to the severity of your problem ** Dieting is absolutely linked to eating disorders in children, and this is fatal for 50% of children who develop anorexia My number one tip to stop gaining weight ------------------------------------------------------------ Stop that diet and promise you’ll never, ever, diet again! If you only do this, you might initially gain weight, but as your metabolic rate improves you will lose at least 5 kilos and never regain it. You will over time feel a lot better, with a lot more energy, you’ll feel good about yourself and you may even feel like learning about more healthy food, or learning the 14 things that people do to lower their metabolic rate that they mostly don't realise, or taking up a sport that you can play for the pleasure of it. In other words, you’ll get a life. The Biggest Loser? Find the “off” button and use it, because The Biggest Loser is absolutely The Biggest Stinker!
Christine Sutherland is a clinical researcher, and a clinician specialising in weight loss. She is the author of “Beat Cravings, Shift Fat” and the founder of <a href="http://www.WeightChoice.com.au">WeightChoice</a>. After reviewing obesity studies all over the world, she believes it is now clear that the only scientifically valid way to lose weight and keep it off is to recognise that that people’s food and exercise preferences are conditioned responses that can be easily altered, so that they make authentic changes from choice, not because they are imposed upon them.
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