Archive for the ‘The Biggest Loser by Tristin Aaron’ Category
Season 10’s “Biggest Loser” Finale: The Fix and The Fixers (Part Two of Two)
Sarah, a contestant on upcoming Season 11Wait a minute.
Read Part One of this post here:
Wait a minute.
People who are overweight and/or obese have a problem controlling how much they eat. That’s bad for their health.
However, the inability to exercise complete, rational control over your behavior at all times is the hallmark of being a living, sentient, human being.
Fat people are not more damaged than other people. They’re not less stable.
Fat people are just really, really unlucky. Everyone has issues, imperfections, foibles, big and small. Heavy people wear a personal shortcoming externally, for anyone to see and judge. And pay them less.
Lisa didn’t become a better mom when she became a thinner mom. The fact that Lisa was not able to stop overeating, and even her admission that, as a working, single mom she frequently fed her kids cheap, take-out, fatty pizza (shocking!) doesn’t mean that she ever failed to meet their emotional or material needs.
Weight is not a moral or character issue. It’s a health issue. But the Biggest Loser is relentless in characterizing contestants as initially weak, childlike, and even, in trainer Bob’s words, “broken” people. Read the rest of this entry »
Season 10’s “Biggest Loser” Finale: The Fix and The Fixers (Part One of Two)
This season's final four contestants, with winner Patrick on far left
This week, 11 million Americans watched unemployed Mississippian Patrick walk away with the title of “The Biggest Loser” and $250,000 on the tenth season’s live finale.
Patrick’s win, like the $100,000 at-home prize for Mark, felt canned and dull.
The only spicy note in the unveiling of the victors was the tension between the two champs. Mark was one of two players this season, along with Jessie, who felt betrayed by Patrick’s cash-rules-everything-around-me vote to send them home. However, viewers were assured that they all love each other now. Phew!
Surprise! Both winning men were the final contestant weighed in their categories. Read the rest of this entry »
Last Night’s Biggest Loser; The Long And Winding Road
Ada "The Termin-ada" crushes the marathon
On last night’s Biggest Loser, Patrick, a sweet, aw-shucks unemployed 27 year-old husband and dad of two from Vicksburg, MS, was crossing the finish line of a marathon on the California coast. Weighing in somewhere in the mid 200s (the show’s official weigh-in had not yet happened), he made a respectable time of 5 hours and 45 minutes.
But there was another man talking to him. It was …. also Patrick, taped back when he weighed 400 pounds, just three months prior. Disconcertingly referring to himself as “we,” meaning, “the fat me and the skinny me,” he also commented:
“I don’t believe there’s any way that I could run a marathon. I’m not sure that I could even finish it. It would take all day. That’s like climbing Mt. Everest or somethin’….”
Moments later as viewers continued to watch our heroic final four dieters run, jog and walk to the marathon finish, they heard from Fonzie-like Staten Islander Frado, a family man and financial trader: “You can do this. If I can do this, anybody can do this.”
It was marathon night on Biggest Loser, where the four remaining dieters each completed a 26.2 mile course. Ada ran it in a competitive burst with a final time of 4.5 hours while Elizabeth surely walked most of her 7.5 hours. Regardless, for the series’ penultimate episode, it was the perfect, symbolic choice. Nothing could be a clearer demarcation of how far the losers have come, or a more perfect representation of how many missed opportunities America’s biggest health-related TV show has seen this season.
After all, a two-hour diet and exercise show which regularly pulls in between 7 and 12 million viewers has a pretty strong platform for disseminating encouraging information, right? Read the rest of this entry »
Last Night’s “Biggest Loser:” Suppertime Cometh
Host Alison Sweeney and guest Nastia Liukin
In last night’s episode of The Biggest Loser, Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin delivered an important message to the contestants. With a bright smile and her child athlete’s familiarity with total self-denial, she was a beacon of hope, a kindred spirit to our friends on their journeys. She was also there to address a crucial topic: food, which is something rarely discussed on the show. Aside from tossed-away tips and food-related challenges, America’s $100 million weight-loss juggernaut is mostly silent about what to eat while slimming.
However, Nastia had some helpful information: “Staying fit is a process and part of that is eating right and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The great thing about Subway is, it fits perfectly no matter what your needs are.”
You see, leaving the ranch loomed large on last night’s Biggest Loser. With six contestants remaining and two of them about to go home, everyone began to worry about how they would fare outside of the show’s artificial bubble. Bob and Jillian decided it was time for a fireside chat.
“Contestants are going home soon. Historically speaking, it’s a really difficult transition for them,” said Jillian, with her trademark crooked smirk.
Bob went for a more colorful (and confusing) metaphor to describe the contestants’ situation: “You guys have pulled the curtain back. You’ve met the wizard….You have the strength. You have the knowledge. You can do it. If you decide you’re worth it enough to do it.”
But the soon-to-be-eliminated Mark voiced the fear that all the sweatshirt-clad were feeling:
“I honestly don’t know what to do when I get home.” Read the rest of this entry »
Last Night’s Biggest Loser: “It’s A Beautiful World We Live In”
Ken Paves bringing all his talents to bear on Elizabeth for Makeover Week
Biggest Loser Season 10 Episode 10
“It’s A Beautiful World We Live In”
Last night, while most American households watched Bristol Palin lose the Dancing With the Stars finale, some of us finally learned how to pronounce the name of Ken Paves, noted Jessica Simpson hanger-on (and creator of Simpson’s low-rent hair-extensions line).
It’s Pave-iss.
Ken was on hand to help the seven remaining Biggest Loser dieters because it was makeover week.
“I’m gonna be beautiful tomorrow,” declared a triumphant Elizabeth.
But was she really more beautiful in her strange new plus-size clothes? Stylists gave her a cheap-looking, printed-pattern sweater and office-worker slacks with an oddly placed thin belt, plus a long shirt which resembled a short skirt.
There’s a reason the average American woman wears a size 14, yet clothing above size 14 represents only 18 percent of sales: there are few great clothing options for plus-size women, a problem documented carefully in this New York Times Magazine piece.
So while Marc Jacobs’ business partner Robert Duffy tantalizingly tweets of a possible plus-size line, American women are relegated to low-cost, ill-fitting pieces from Lane Bryant or mega-expensive, loose-fitting therapist wear from J Jill or Eileen Fisher. In 2005, H&M discontinued plus-sizes entirely, while J. Crew and Ann Taylor recently moved them to online-only. Read the rest of this entry »
Last night’s “The Biggest Loser:” Do It For Your Family
Contestant Patrick House, a 28 year old unemployed father of two from Vicksburg, MS (starting weight: 400 pounds, current weight 301).
In the opening of last night’s “The Biggest Loser,” trainer Bob Harper challenged Patrick House, a 28 year old from Vicksburg, MS (starting weight: 400 pounds).
“Why do you wanna be here, Patrick?”
Patrick answered, “For my family. I’ve got two boys.”
“Time to make your sons proud.” Bob said off-camera, his voice beaming warmth like a bad lieutenant gone soft.
All eyes were on Patrick as this week’s episode of NBC’s hit show opened, since it was his shocking betrayal of supposed friend and partner Jesse last week that sent him home. Bob wanted answers; nay, America wanted answers.
Patrick explained, “I would have loved to have never had to vote Jesse out. But at the same time, he’s partnered with my biggest competition right now, standing between me and winning the Biggest Loser.”
Later we learn that Patrick is unemployed, and living off family loans. Read the rest of this entry »
Last Night’s The Biggest Loser: Gender Warfare Is The Least of Your Problems, Honey
On last night’s episode of NBC’s hit show “The Biggest Loser,” trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels were extremely disappointed in the terrible results their clients achieved the week before. “I want to see numbers on that scale that represent what Jillian and I are all about!” Bob exclaimed, yelling out into the gym, “I’m thinking I want to hurt someone I haven’t been able to hurt for a long time.” Contestants had trained at Camp Pendleton, the famed Marine training ground, and had mostly posted unacceptable weight loss of a pound or two for the week. In fact, three players gained weight for the week, unheard of in Biggest Loser history. It got Bob pissed, and it got us at the Center for Health, Media and Policy at Hunter College wondering: what the hell are they doing at that ranch? What goes on in their normal environment if a week at Camp Pendleton is like a week at the Cheesecake Factory? So we’re blogging The Biggest Loser this week and for the rest of the season to take a closer look, calling on experts from various health care professions to help us understand what this enormously popular and profitable expression of health issues is all about.
It’s a weird time to be a fat person in America. In an era when most of us strive to treat each other with sensitivity about a myriad of physical and cultural differences, overweight people, with their “self-created” problems, don’t rate much consideration. The fashion and entertainment industries are notorious for their plus-size unfriendly ways. Even against this background, the current cultural mood towards the heavy seems to be shifting into a harsher gear, seeing them increasingly as moral degenerates and a civic burden. The right predicted years ago that if cigarette smoking was culturally vilified, eventually twinkies would be too, and, for better or worse, they were right: NYC has banned trans fats and has floated taxing sugar-based drinks; many other municipalities are following suit. What was once a personal struggle to eat well has acquired new civic and moral weight. So, with our country agog about the obesity epidemic and its related health care costs, with Michelle Obama dedicating herself to helping all kids be as sleek and fit as Malia and Sasha, and with Mika Brzezinski smugly purring about her daily runs and abhorrence of carbs every morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, The Biggest Loser occupies a strange place in our current cultural landscape. With all due respect to the fat acceptance movement, most of us don’t dispute that being severely overweight is not healthy, but you have to wonder what’s going on when seven million people tune in weekly to cheer as the obese are pushed to exercise until they vomit or are hospitalized. Read the rest of this entry »
