Earlier this week, Active.com posted an excellent article by Nancy Clark, MS RD CSSD, that discussed the hit TV show “Biggest Loser” and it’s approach to weight loss and exercise.
Biggest Loser, according to Clark, positions exercise as torture and food as the enemy.
I agree that because of the “magic” of television, viewers of the show are lead to believe that after years of eating poorly and living a sedentary life, they now have to suffer through long hours in the gym and eat an extremely limited diet.
Aside from the obvious — people have jobs, families, and commitments — six hours in a gym everyday is not something most people can realistically devote their time too. Also, double digit weight loss (10 pounds or more) in a single week is not only unrealistic, it’s extremely dangerous.
According to the National Institute of Heath:
“Research suggests that losing 1/2 to 2 pounds a week by making healthy food choices, eating moderate portions, and building physical activity into your daily life is the best way to lose weight and keep it off. By adopting healthy eating and physical activity habits, you may also lower your risk for developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.”
Don’t forget that the participants on the show work out under medical supervision. You can bet that is not the case at your local gym.
While exercise is vital to losing weight, it absolutely needs to be fun. When it becomes a chore, most people stop doing it.
That’s a big reason why triathlon is so great, and why the sport is exploding right now. You can exercise outside of the walls of a gym. You aren’t stuck doing the same thing every single day; one day you can run, another you can bike, on another you can swim. You don’t have to do it alone either. There are plenty of group workouts with people of all abilities, skill levels, and shapes and sizes.
Another thing that Biggest Loser does not make blatantly clear is that the participants are not actually on any “diet”. Instead, they are working to migrate from sedentary lives and poor eating habits. The goal is to replace the habit of years of sitting still and eating junk and large portions and replace it with an active life of exercise and eating healthy, satisfying food.
Diets, by definition, are temporary band-aid for what is usually a deeper problem. It’s no secret that there is a very solid link between obesity and depression. That is something that neither a diet nor exercise can fix. People need to do some digging and get to the root cause as to why they are unhappy; what their actions are when they feel bad, and work through it. There’s also a strong psychological link between food and emotion. Eating makes us feel good — our bodies have a positive physiological response to food. Those topics don’t really fit well into a weekly TV program. And the solutions are definitely one-size fits all.
I’m not denying that Biggest Loser is intriguing television. I just believe that it sets some fairly unrealistic expectations as to what normal weight loss is, and how to achieve it.
What do you think?