No. That’s my answer anyway.
I have some thin friends who say that they just watch it for a joke. They’re looking forward to new episodes. It’s so bad, it’s good they say. I’m not a “it’s so bad it’s good” kind of person.
I said, just stop. It’s not funny. It’s abusive. It doesn’t work. It hurts people. But also, it affects your attitudes towards fat people. Did you know that?
“A 2012 study published in the journal Obesity found that people who watched just one episode of the show exhibited higher levels of explicit bias against fat people. “Participants who had lower BMIs and were not trying to lose weight had significantly higher levels of dislike of overweight individuals following exposure to The Biggest Loser compared to similar participants in the control condition,”the researchers found. Just one hour of watching the show left thinner people with an even greater personal dislike of fat people.” From Jillian Michaels and the Alarming Legacy of the Biggest Loser.
What do you think? We know that my sense of humour about the treatment of large bodied people by the media is running low. You might have read my very very cranky review of Brittany Runs a Marathon.
You can’t miss the announcements: “The all-new Biggest Loser | Premieres January 28th.” But you don’t have to watch the show.
We’ve written about the show before. Lots. As you can guess we don’t much like it.
From the Olympics to the Biggest Loser? Say it ain’t so Holly
TV shows, fitness, and weight loss: Love and hate
I know the mistake they made: The biggest losers just stopped exercising
More on the mistakes the biggest losers make: But what about muscle?
The biggest losers just did it the wrong way! They lost the weight too quickly!
Extreme Dieting and Metabolic Adaptation: The “Biggest Loser” Dataset (Guest Post)
Imagine if size didn’t matter. Can you?
So has Caitlin at Fit and Feminist:
THE ‘SHOCKING’ OUTCOME OF THE BIGGEST LOSER IS NOT ALL THAT SHOCKING
Don’t watch the Biggest Loser. Watch this great ad instead!