Tv Shows About Losing Weight
Biggest Loser host Bob Harper, left, and My Diet is Better than Yours host Shaun T, right, with contestant Taj Robinson (left photo by Tyler Golden/NBC; right photo by Guy D'Alema/ABC)
The new year brought with it cold air, resolutions, and weight loss reality shows. Yes, they’re back, though they never really went away, like diets and hope.
Each of the three shows I’ve reviewed here—one old, two brand-new—illustrate the challenges of losing weight, mostly in the form of working out. Emotions arepackaged neatly into quick soundbites that land at just the right moment of struggle, and everything issmothered in a unifying conceit.
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The contestants’progress, which is rapid—in real life, sure, but definitely on screen—is impressive. In 60 or 90 minutes, pounds drop away, and each showhas a clear message:
You, person sitting on the couch, can do this, too! Why not try, perhaps with these products we have to sell you?
Imay not be the biggest fan of any of these shows (and that’s as much of an understatement as a chocolate-covered Oreo is understated), but I was certainly drawn in at moments. They know how to tug at our desires to be better, to do better by ourselves.
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Of the three shows, NBC’sThe Biggest Loser: Temptation Nation(Mondays at 9) looks the best, with the slickest production. But it is also theworst because of how full of crapit is.
Yes, technically, thisrebooted versionof the long-running seriesisstrong, a well-produced show with striking lighting, great set design, and editing thatknows how tosell a moment. And there are very real moments:touching storiesof unimaginable loss, the breaking points during tough workouts, the game play, theshiny logos of sponsors.
Shifting Bob Harper from trainer to host has only managed to amplify his voice and his ego.“I am raising the money!” he screamed during the first challenge, throwinghis arms intothe air, and all that was missing was the lightning and thunder.
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When someone climbed down off a treadmill and collapsed in the arms of a medic, Bob’s focuswas on the game: “Did you press that button?”In a later challenge, anothercontestantclimbed up the side of a building, and when Bob explained the next part of the game, sheasked, “Is there water?” Bob toldher, and this is real, “Not ’til we make our decision.” (If only the producers could withhold oxygen, too, just imagine the moments they’d get from that!)
There’s very little Bobdoesn’t shout at the contestants, as if that will make what he’s saying seem significant instead of just a well-produced moment conceived by smart producers.
This is the essential problem with The Biggest Loser, the way it pretends it’s about health but is really about the production: the forceddrama, the product placement, theemotion.
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It’s absolutely effective, for sure.Thepain is real, from the physical to the unimaginable guilt that a mother feels about the drowning death of her son.Setting aside how making weight loss into a gameencourages people do damage to their physical and emotional well-being, the competition can present interesting choices, some of which are not bad metaphors for real life. But this is not real life, this isThe Biggest Loser.
The logo is different and Bob is there, but really, nothing has changed with TheBiggest Loser.It is what it always has been, andnow it’s just the tiny part of the icebergsticking above the surface, puncturing a hole in our rationality so we can sink into the icy waters wherethe empire of Biggest Loser productsawaits, promising rescue and salvation.
There’s something very interesting at the core of ABC’sMy Diet is Better Than Yours (Thursdays at 9), a show on which each overweight contestant is paired with a trainer whohas a differentweight-loss plan.
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Our obsession with dieting has produced so many options, with a new fad diet grabbingattention every few minutes. So, testing different plans against one anotheris interesting, as is the show’sbestaddition to the weight loss format: allowing contestants to dump their trainers and chooseanother plan. (There is a caveat, which is that each person can switch only once and only one person can switch each episode, which seem more like practical decisions, so the show doesn’t have change-ups every week.)
Alas, beyond the idea, My Diet is Better Than Yours simply comes off as The Biggest Loser done cheap, with onlya $50, 000 prize and agym/weigh-in room looks like someone tried to recreate The Biggest Loser set in an abandoned building. The scale is just sad, and attempting to copy TheBiggest Loser’s weight-display screenhas resultedin a display that cycles through fake weightsdigit by digit, which ends upincluding numbersthat startwith 8 and 9, as if the person somehow gained 700 pounds.
Shaun T’s hosting is stiffand veryAllison Sweeney-esque in its tediousness, and the at-home training, while more realistic than BL, adds to the low-rent feel.
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But the real problem seems to lie in casting. The trainers are quite irritating, and during the episodes I watched, I just wanted them to go away. The non-challengesegments feeloverly coached, and perhaps the annoyingness from the trainers comes from that. Still, some of their advice is just absurd, and there’s nothing in the show’s presentation of them or their methods that makes me trustthem as experts.
If the show goes to a second season, it’d be interesting to do this with higher-profile weight-loss methods, maybe in teamsof people committed to their plan competing against each other. Weight Watchers versus Jenny Craig. Atkins versus vegans. The South Beach Diet versus the Paleo Diet versus Whole 30.
The worldcould use that kind of data, and reality television could use that kind of show. But wedefinitely do not need another BiggestLoser.
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On A&E’sFit to Fat to Fit (Tuesdays at 10), atrainer gains weightpounds over four months, and then helps an overweight client while losing the weight he or she just gained.
In the first episode, when Ray learns that his trainer JJ is going to gain weight, he pauses for a moment and then says, “I don’t recommend that. In one aspect, it breaks my heart that you’re doing that to yourself.I think it’s amazing you’re willing to but—” Raystarts crying. “Part of me’s just sad for you, because I know what it’s like, and it sucks, and I don’t want anyone else to go there.”
He later says, “You’re nuts.” It’s hard to disagree.Having the trainer become unhealthyliterally makes no sense, and worse, the show does exactly nothing with it.
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The showcomes from Renegade83, the producers ofNaked and Afraid, and the production is well-done.The flaw is in the concept. At least on Naked and Afraid, the nudity is both sensational and purposeful, adding an additional layer of challengefor survivalists who want to test their skills in extreme conditions.
While the trainer gains weight, Fit to Fat to Fitignoresthe overweightperson. After all, who wants to see a fat person when you can see a hot, buff guy eat fast food?
And none of what the trainer goes throughis surprising. Fast food tastes good! Shocking!When Morgan Spurlock did this forthe documentary Super Size Me, he at least had purpose—testing a claim McDonald’s made—anddidn’t set out to just gain weight to lose it again.
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Once the trainer is overweight—yeah, nothing is done with that. It’s rarely mentioned, and it certainly doesn’t seem to accomplish anything to help either the trainer or the overweight person. Sure, once the show gets around to showing the client losing weight, there are the requisitefeel-good moments: pushing hard, breaking down, and showing off their new body to friends and family.
Watching a trainer work with and connect with a client is actually interesting. Butweight loss aloneapparently wouldn’tmake for a good show, because who wants to see a normal person do normal things?
I look forward to spin-offs, such as Not on Fire to on Fire to Not on Fire, where firefighters set fire to their houses. That’d make more sense than this does.
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