The lingering effects of "The Biggest Loser"
We're fooling ourselves if we think fatphobic cruelty is a thing of the past
I was anxious about watching the documentary series “Fit for TV,” about the reality show “The Biggest Loser.” Like, really anxious. Not because I myself have ever had to endure that kind of cruelty and public humiliation. But because it meant facing the fact that I had watched the early seasons of that show and failed to recognize its signature abuse and dehumanization for what it was.
While I feel ashamed that I chose to witness abuse in primetime, I understand why this show became so popular: it tapped into so many deeply held beliefs about bodies, the value of “hard work,” and the promise of transformation. If I can feel empathy for the tens of millions of other viewers, could I also extend that compassion to myself?
The day the docuseries was set to air, I was interviewed by CNN to share my thoughts about the lasting impact of the show on our culture. Even before I watched the painful clips featured in the documentary, I could vividly remember so many horrific details of the show.
It wasn’t hard to do because in many ways things haven’t really changed.
I did decide to watch the documentary series, on my phone with a headset, so I could distance myself a bit more from it and make sure no one else in my family was exposed. And I felt embarrassed about my own squeamishness. Who am I to feel traumatized by something I watched on TV and not something I experience in my everyday life?
But why wouldn’t I be repulsed by torture-as-entertainment, especially now that I see the effects of this kind of anti-fatness on families every day?
So much ink has already been spilled about this documentary and its subjects. Does the world need another essay about The Biggest Loser, especially from someone who’s never personally experienced that kind of oppressive weight stigma?
If your answer is no, I get that. Feel free to scroll right to the end where I’ve got some suggested reading.
But if you’re curious to learn more about how The Biggest Loser has affected all of us—even if you never watched the show yourself—stay with me.
Anti-fatness was the foundation of The Biggest Loser, but the form it took was as a “makeover” competition show. And, boy, do we love makeovers. Before-and-afters, the promise of reinvention, the glow-up.
The Biggest Loser sold us a particular version of this transformation story: weight loss as salvation. Despite the sinister wordplay in the title, the show told us that being fat meant being a loser and a failure—failure not only at being thin but at being seen as healthy, desirable, hard-working, a good person—and especially a good parent. (I could write a whole separate essay about all the parent-child dynamics that were exploited in the show.)
This show didn’t invent these ideas, but it glamorized them and packaged them in new ways, granting the world permission to treat people in larger bodies with even less respect and care, all under the guise of it being helpful. And it reinforced dangerous ideas about food, exercise, weight, and health that persist to this day. The show might seem extreme, but it was really just an expression of diet culture.
The documentary filmmakers want us to be shocked by the means, but not the ends.
“Fit for TV” raises questions about the tactics used by the trainers or the challenges designed by unscrupulous producers. But aside from Aubrey Gordon, no one interrogates the show’s underlying beliefs about fatness or how the show harmed not only contestants but the culture as a whole.
And that’s what I want to dig into today: the lingering effects of the show on all of us. As one of the producers states—with pride—in the documentary, “The show changed the conversation at the dinner table.”
It sure did.
This show reinforced the harmful notion of “good” vs. “bad” foods and “good” vs. “bad” bodies. Its entire premise contributed to weight stigma (its own health risk factor) and a rise in disordered eating and eating disorders. Apologists for The Biggest Loser are determined to believe the ultimate goal of the show was to inspire viewers to “get healthier,” but the results speak for themselves. There’s no evidence the population—or even the vast majority of contestants—is healthier now. And since the most likely outcome of dieting is weight gain, it’s no wonder we haven’t gotten any smaller either.
Rather than encouraging healthy behaviors, The Biggest Loser indoctrinated millions in the tenets of modern diet culture.
It told us that if you aren’t thin, you don’t deserve love or pleasure—and in fact, you should suffer.
It sold the lie that everyone in a large body can and should become small by any means necessary—and that staying thin is a matter of willpower.
It normalized personal trainers giving nutrition advice.
It packaged verbal abuse as “motivational.”
It reinforced the no-pain-no-gain idea that punishing exercise is “good for you.”
It promoted the erroneous belief that exercise leads to longterm changes in body weight.
It moralized food, framing the act of eating anything other than vegetables and chicken breast as giving in to sinful temptation.
It endorsed risking physical health for temporary weight loss.
It suggested the path to happiness and success was through shrinking your body.
It asserted that diets “work” and that body size is simply a matter of calories in, calories out.
It implied that large bodies are either the cause or result of great personal tragedy.
It idolized restriction and thinness, no matter the cost to health or wellbeing.
It taught us to blame dieters who develop anorexia for “taking it too far.”
I could keep going, but let’s pause, catch our breath, and consider whether any of these ideas have gone away since the show was cancelled.
From where I’m sitting, I’d say these beliefs about food, exercise, and bodies are more intense than ever. The echoes of Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper are heard all over the internet, from the abusive language and pro-eating disorder accounts under the hashtag formerly known as SkinnyTok, to random people telling strangers on social media to “hit the gym.”1
Weight stigma isn’t just on our screens, of course. It’s everywhere in our world—in doctor’s offices, schools, sports teams, workplaces, dating apps, and, yes, even in our own families. It’s undeniable that many aspects of life can be harder if you’re fat. And cultural juggernauts like The Biggest Loser have only made it worse.
If we’re trying to raise kids who don’t equate weight with worth—for themselves or for anyone—it means reckoning with the diet culture beliefs promoted not only in old reality television but in the reality of our lives today. And the good news is that we can unlearn these insidious beliefs about bodies and help the next generation grow up to identify weight stigma and know that it’s wrong.
There’s a reason a once-profitable hit finally went off the air and is now being reexamined. Diet culture isn’t going away anytime soon, but I don’t think a network could make The Biggest Loser today. And I’ll take that as a win.
Other suggested reading:
“Outraged By The Biggest Loser But Fine With Ozempic?” by Virgie Tovar
“The Biggest Loser Changed My Life” by Kate Manne
Fit for TV, Part 1 by Aaron Flores RDN
Note that while the #SkinnyTok hashtag has been banned, the extreme and dangerous weight-loss content itself hasn’t gone anywhere.
I loved Kate Manne’s piece too. The most problematic tenet of diet culture for me personally is the “hard work” aspect- I still see it in so many of my peers as our kids get older and we are in the post 35/early 40s is this perimenopause age. I am outwardly opposed to dieting and frequently share my experience but I still hear or see comments about “I can’t eat like that anymore at my age” or “I am working so hard to get back to where I was a few years ago.” And with people I see frequently I push back but it’s so ingrained, especially in the white middle class community I often find myself in.