Former ‘The Biggest Loser’ contestant calls the show a ‘fat-shaming disaster’
Before going on The Biggest Loser, 26-year-old Kai Hibbard weighed 265 pounds. Her best friends then convinced her to try out for the NBC reality series, and Hibbard made the cut and lost a record setting 121 pounds. But it begs the question, would she recommend that others struggling with weight gain do the same?
“The whole f*cking show,” she says today, “is a fat-shaming disaster that I’m embarrassed to have participated in.” (Via)
Kai Hibbard and another former contestant that wanted to remain anonymous, revealed what it was like to be on The Biggest Loser. According to reports, Hibbard revealed the “brutal secrets” behind the fat camp TV series, including cast members being unable to leave their hotel room when cameras were not on, hacked laptops, and “sick” trainers, who “took satisfaction in bringing their charges to physical and mental collapse.”
Hibbard had the same experience. “They would say things to contestants like, ‘You’re going die before your children grow up.’ ‘You’re going to die, just like your mother.’ ‘We’ve picked out your fat-person coffin’ — that was in a text message. One production assistant told a contestant to take up smoking because it would cut her appetite in half.”
Hibbard says the bulk of food on her season was provided by sponsors and had little to no nutritional value.
“Your grocery list is approved by your trainer,” she says. “My season had a lot of Franken-foods: I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray, Kraft fat-free cheese, Rockstar Energy Drinks, Jell-O.” (Via)
So, The Biggest Loser forces you to develop an eating disorder? Regardless, Hibbard isn’t the only one to criticize The Biggest Loser’s techniques. Dr. Charles Burant, director of the Michigan Metabolomics and Obesity Center says he is “waiting for the first person to have a heart attack.” He went on to say, “I have had some patients who want to [follow the show’s regimen], and I counsel them against it. I think the show is so exploitative. They are taking poor people who have severe weight problems whose real focus is trying to win the quarter-million dollars.”
NBC told the New York Post that “contestants are closely monitored and medically supervised” in its short statement defending a ratings hit that has spawned a franchise including merchandise and cookbooks.
Hibbard revealed she sufferend long-term health problems that she believes arose asa result of the extreme approach to weight loss, in which contestants are pushed to lose 30 pounds a week. Healthy weight loss is largely considered to be 2 pounds per week.
“My hair was falling out. My period stopped. I was only sleeping three hours a night,” Hibbard said. “My thyroid, which I never had problems with, is now crap.”
Hibbard also reported bad knees and short term memory loss.
“You’re brainwashed to believe that you’re super-lucky to be there,” Hibbard said. “I was thinking, ‘Dear God, don’t let anybody down. You will appear ungrateful if you don’t lose more weight before the season finale.’”
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