Thought this may be an interesting topic of conversation. Who’s watched it. Who’s watching and who’s not.

I’m in episode two and it’s making me mad. Honestly I only watched odd episodes across a couple of seasons when the show began and it upset me then so I shouldn’t be surprised.

They were making profit & ‘good tv’ from people’s emotional, physical & psychological pain & in the documentary they sound proud of it.

They didn’t provide any support. They didn’t teach the participants anything about nutrition or sustainable eating habits for the future. Just watched a doctor telling the participants that 800 or fewer calories was dangerous & then Jillian Michaels telling them not to listen to the doctor and keep eating fewer calories. Then a comp where if they are the most junk food from a table they could see their families and likening it to a real world scenario of going to a restaurant or buying groceries. As if choosing a slice of pizza affects whether you see your family or not in the real world.

Horrifying.

I watched it avidly. Weight loss programs are still my jam. I feel empathy because they are me. I watched/ watch because I want the one type of program that I crave. It would be the one diet that I could do forever.

In the show the biggest loser, the format never changed. They told a life story, got well and truly fat shamed, were made to cry, Gillian/Bob would shout and call them babies, they would exercise till they vomitted. Gillian/ Bob would laugh and say I told you that you could do it. Occasionally they went way too far and the poor person would get carted off to hospital and off the show PDQ. I hated the whole Lord of the flies vibe where the team voted off/killed off the weakest member and left them to go it alone.

It eventually dawned on me that the participants were loosing ridiculous amounts of weight each week, I remember a person managed 42lbs one week ! I did the math and it just didnt work out. It couldnt be healthy, I figured they had to use all kinds of drugs to do that. I also thought that the producers would be sanctioning its extremes. It all got leaked eventually and Gillian and Bob did a really bad remorse interview that I didnt believe at all. The show quickly died a death after that on UK tv. I believe they did a version in Australia? Was it better controlled?

I just watched the miniseries and I was also wondering if anybody here had watched it! I never watched a full season of The Biggest Loser, but I've seen a few random episodes, and I have so many feelings. It was one of the worst reality shows in history for so many reasons!

• Its portrayal of weight loss makes it look impossible. It gives the impression that weight loss requires spending all day at the gym doing impossibly strenuous workouts. It also portrays the gym as a humiliating experience where trainers berate fat people. This leads many people who want to lose weight to either attempt the process portrayed in the show, realize it's basically impossible, and give up, or not even try in the first place because they can't fathom enduring this kind of torture.

• It leads thin people to believe that it's acceptable and even beneficial to shame fat people "for their own good."

• It portrays unsafe and virtually impossible rates of weight loss. The miniseries didn't address this, but I've read that the timeline on the show is misleading, because they say the weigh-ins are a week apart, but they're really longer. Contestants are shown losing 12 pounds in a week when the actual weigh-ins were 2 weeks apart. Either way, it gives unrealistic expectations of weight loss, which are very discouraging to those trying to lose weight. People who "only" lose 2 pounds in a week think they've failed and give up.

• The challenges are detrimental to the contestants. The miniseries mentioned this, and I remember seeing something like this in one of the random episodes I watched, where "temptations" were presented, and the contestants had to do something detrimental to their weight loss (like eat donuts or give up a day in the gym) to earn privileges like talking to their family. If the show wanted to pretend to care about the contestants, they could have made it the opposite: resist the temptations to earn rewards. The more broccoli you eat, the sooner you get to talk to your family.

• They exploited people who needed legitimate medical help. I'm guessing many of the contestants would have had WLS if they had access to it, but wanted to go on the show either because they couldn't afford it or because the stigma of WLS made them believe they had to do it the "right" way. The miniseries mentioned this as the concept of the show, losing weight "the old fashioned way, without surgery" Which is quitting your job to spend all day at the gym and work out until you vomit, I guess? I wonder what people would think of a reality show that made cancer patients compete for treatment.

• The contestants who were interviewed seemed so traumatized by the experience. Even the ones who didn't regain all of the weight, even the ones who said they were glad they were on the show, went through so much pain. It's outrageous and disgusting that the show preyed on these people.

I never watched the Biggest Loser because somehow it felt exploitative BUT I definitely watched 600lb Life which in retrospect was definitely exploitative. So maybe it was the exercise I was against after all. Go figure. 🤣

13 hours ago, BigSue said:

I just watched the miniseries and I was also wondering if anybody here had watched it! I never watched a full season of The Biggest Loser, but I've seen a few random episodes, and I have so many feelings. It was one of the worst reality shows in history for so many reasons!

• Its portrayal of weight loss makes it look impossible. It gives the impression that weight loss requires spending all day at the gym doing impossibly strenuous workouts. It also portrays the gym as a humiliating experience where trainers berate fat people. This leads many people who want to lose weight to either attempt the process portrayed in the show, realize it's basically impossible, and give up, or not even try in the first place because they can't fathom enduring this kind of torture.

• It leads thin people to believe that it's acceptable and even beneficial to shame fat people "for their own good."

• It portrays unsafe and virtually impossible rates of weight loss. The miniseries didn't address this, but I've read that the timeline on the show is misleading, because they say the weigh-ins are a week apart, but they're really longer. Contestants are shown losing 12 pounds in a week when the actual weigh-ins were 2 weeks apart. Either way, it gives unrealistic expectations of weight loss, which are very discouraging to those trying to lose weight. People who "only" lose 2 pounds in a week think they've failed and give up.

• The challenges are detrimental to the contestants. The miniseries mentioned this, and I remember seeing something like this in one of the random episodes I watched, where "temptations" were presented, and the contestants had to do something detrimental to their weight loss (like eat donuts or give up a day in the gym) to earn privileges like talking to their family. If the show wanted to pretend to care about the contestants, they could have made it the opposite: resist the temptations to earn rewards. The more broccoli you eat, the sooner you get to talk to your family.

• They exploited people who needed legitimate medical help. I'm guessing many of the contestants would have had WLS if they had access to it, but wanted to go on the show either because they couldn't afford it or because the stigma of WLS made them believe they had to do it the "right" way. The miniseries mentioned this as the concept of the show, losing weight "the old fashioned way, without surgery" Which is quitting your job to spend all day at the gym and work out until you vomit, I guess? I wonder what people would think of a reality show that made cancer patients compete for treatment.

• The contestants who were interviewed seemed so traumatized by the experience. Even the ones who didn't regain all of the weight, even the ones who said they were glad they were on the show, went through so much pain. It's outrageous and disgusting that the show preyed on these people.

Really well said!

I never watched more than a few snippets when Biggest Loser aired here.

The mini series on Netflix (in Australia anyway) was fascinating and scary... Bob's and the producer's etc..total lack of remorse was horrifying!

Every point you have made is exactly what I was thinking too! No wonder we all struggle so much, those attitudes still prevail today! 😪

I ended up binging all three episodes of the documentary (ironically while doing my afternoon stretches through some of it). Did anyone notice how they said the show generated $100m profit in total yet the response to the contestant who asked for a program of therapy and support be put in place for contestants after they participated was told there was no money to do it. And how Jillian whispered to the first winner thank you, you just won me a million dollars. So we know her and a Bob’s motivation. And don’t get me started on the producer & Bob’s pompous and total lack of remorse was quite horrifying.

Exploitative? 100% Wonder if such a program would get green lit today. Though with the number of toxic gym bros on social media berating any one without a 6 (or 12) pack, zero body fat, butchering 300g of protein a day, etc, etc., it probably would. We have learnt nothing.

I watched this! Originally, when the Biggest Loser was on I watched seasons 6 and 7 I think because those seasons coincided with me losing weight after having my son and losing weight after I had him.

I feel like netflix could have done better this because I think this particular show has impacted us more as a society than we think. Unfortunately, I’m finding a lot of the netflix produced documentaries are leaving me wanting more.

I spent half of my adult life as a member of Weight Watchers and via their social media platform Connect, I have seen the ramifications of this show. One of the most glaring ones is that the huge losses of the weigh ins on that show messed up everyone’s expectations of weight loss. I would see people posting on there ‘I’m disappointed and frustrated because I only lost 2 pounds this week. I don’t think this is working.’ I would try to make it a point to tell these people ‘Hey that’s awesome and normal! This isn’t The Biggest Loser, losing 20 pounds a week isn’t something that really happens’

I also tried to go on a deep dive after I was done watching this show to see how many former cast members ended up with bariatric surgery at some point afterwards. I was only able to find three. I know the one lady they interviewed said that she was on a GLP-1 and the Cahill guy who lost the most weight in show history said that he would never take one because Jillian Michaels said they were bad. 🙄

On 8/19/2025 at 12:10 AM, Arabesque said:

Thought this may be an interesting topic of conversation. Who’s watched it. Who’s watching and who’s not.

I’m in episode two and it’s making me mad. Honestly I only watched odd episodes across a couple of seasons when the show began and it upset me then so I shouldn’t be surprised.

They were making profit & ‘good tv’ from people’s emotional, physical & psychological pain & in the documentary they sound proud of it.

They didn’t provide any support. They didn’t teach the participants anything about nutrition or sustainable eating habits for the future. Just watched a doctor telling the participants that 800 or fewer calories was dangerous & then Jillian Michaels telling them not to listen to the doctor and keep eating fewer calories. Then a comp where if they are the most junk food from a table they could see their families and likening it to a real world scenario of going to a restaurant or buying groceries. As if choosing a slice of pizza affects whether you see your family or not in the real world.

Horrifying.

I agree. I haven’t watched the new one but the first one made me sick. They showed them participants in some of their most intimate moments and it was as if they TRiED to hype it up even more for entertainment like they were a circus act!! Horrifying. Shame on them.

I'll admit... I watched it all. My heart broke for them and how they were treated.

On 8/19/2025 at 7:10 AM, Arabesque said:

Thought this may be an interesting topic of conversation. Who’s watched it. Who’s watching and who’s not.

I’m in episode two and it’s making me mad. Honestly I only watched odd episodes across a couple of seasons when the show began and it upset me then so I shouldn’t be surprised.

They were making profit & ‘good tv’ from people’s emotional, physical & psychological pain & in the documentary they sound proud of it.

They didn’t provide any support. They didn’t teach the participants anything about nutrition or sustainable eating habits for the future. Just watched a doctor telling the participants that 800 or fewer calories was dangerous & then Jillian Michaels telling them not to listen to the doctor and keep eating fewer calories. Then a comp where if they are the most junk food from a table they could see their families and likening it to a real world scenario of going to a restaurant or buying groceries. As if choosing a slice of pizza affects whether you see your family or not in the real world.

Horrifying.

Seeing this thread about The Biggest Loser and how reality TV shows matter to viewers made me reflect on how much our TV provider shapes that viewing experience—especially when you binge or rely on premium content.