Flip through the hundreds of television channels on any given evening

and it is easy to find several reality shows ranging from rebuilding houses,

finding the next great cook or watching obese men and women lose weight

at a tremendously fast rate. Shows such as Fat March and The Biggest Loser

do exactly this. They have a range of participants or contestants, who often

weigh anywhere from 200 to 500 pounds each. These participants then

spend the next weeks of their lives on this show losing weight. Normally one

would think this is a great feat for anyone, these people are becoming

healthy through the help of this show. Some of the contestants and health

professionals think otherwise. Several health professionals have declared

these shows to be unhealthy because of the rate the participants are losing

weight at as well as the amount of physical activity they are put through.

Meanwhile, some of the participants themselves claim to have been in pain

while participating in the show. Kim Kearny told USA today in August of 2007

that while participating in ABC’s “Fat March” she was “in excruciating pain”

she said the base of her spine felt like it was being stabbed and her chest

was on fire and felt like she was unable to catch her breath. Kearny, who

started the show at 274 pounds, dropped out the fourth day after walking

more than 10 miles the day before.

The contestants of ABC’s “Fat March” are forced to walk 8 out of 14

days in which they cover 65 miles,This is roughly seven to eight miles per

day. If the average human walks at about three miles per hour, these

contestants are walking for nearly three hours per day. This seems a bit
extreme for a beginner work out routine. Mark Fenton, author of The

Complete Guide to Walking, agrees. Fenton said that these participants were

being pushed to do to much too quickly and that they were at risk for muscle

and skeletal injuries because of their extra weight, they should be starting

with as little as ten minutes of walking per day. Also, their hearts and lungs

were not conditioned for this much activity. So while walking seven to eight

miles may not seem like much to the average person, it is a lot more to

these participants. The eight miles they were forced to walk each day is

more like the equivalent of fifteen miles for us. There is quite a difference in

walking for ten to twenty minutes a day and walking as far as ten miles in

one day, as contestants did on the fourth day of the show. The pain some of

the participants were going through showed through in their injuries.

According to USA today, one contestant quit because of foot and back pains

and another was taken to the hospital because of dehydration. The heaviest

contestant at just under 520 pounds was brought to the emergency room

because of blisters and possible stress fractures in his feet, and yet even

more contestants reported aching knees, feet and ankles. With two people

taken in to the emergency room, two more dropping out because of the

unbearable pain and yet several more with consistent complaints about pain

one would think producers would call filming to a halt until they thought of a

less excruciating way to help these participants lose weight, and also a

healthier way, but they kept filming knowing that viewers would find this

interesting and it would bring in the ratings they needed. IT almost seems as
if the producers were more concerned about getting the ratings and viewers

they needed than the actual physical health of their participants. Physiologist

James Rippe from Tufts University Medical School in Boston goes as far as to

say this work out regimen violates everything about safe and progressive

exercise.

The extreme weight loss seen on these shows is not typical, or healthy,

for the average person. According to The New York Times, NBC’s “The

Biggest Loser” had each of their 18 contestants work with a trainer for up to

five hours each day. Contestants such as Jerry Lisenby lost over 30 pounds in

the first week, while others like Erik Chopin lost over200 pounds in eight

months. Viewers see this and then compare their own diet to the weight loss

of these contestants and probably think their diet is going terribly because

they are only losing a pound or two a week. Although, as stated in the New

York Times the average dieter should only be losing around two pounds per

week, not the 30 pounds some of these contestants are losing.

Not only do these shows affect the people participating, but also the viewers.

Today it seems like everyone is on a diet or trying to lose weight. Shows like

“Fat March” or “The Biggest Loser” only amplify societies obsession with

losing weight. They are causing people who would otherwise be considered

healthy to be dissatisfied with their body and want to lose weight in order to
get that more perfect body. Many people will go to any length to do this,

teens especially. According to the Campaign for a Commercial-Free

Childhood, one half of teenage girls are using habits such as smoking,

skipping meals, vomiting and fasting to get to the lower weight they want to

be at. This is extremely unhealthy, especially for a developing body such as

that of a teenager. This can all be linked back to television and not only the

thin models seen on various shows, but the diet craze that is seen in many

reality television shows. This is easily to see in Fiji, where there was a large

increase in eating disorders after television was introduced.