Fast weight loss may sound like a good idea but year after year personal trainers, nutritionists and health and fitness experts shout into the wind that it is unhealthy and dangerous. And yet still more of these shows are made and released and more people struggling with their unhealthy weight take dangerous risks with their health and life to gain the so called "Perfect weight".
Popular celebrity personal trainer Michelle Bridges defended the shows and quick weight loss strategy stating, "Every person that's ever come on our show that's been on blood pressure medication has actually come off that medication …(also added) type 2 diabetics have gone off all medication and are no longer diabetics. "
But in another statement she said, "80 per cent of people who go on a diet will lose less than 10 per cent of their body weight and be back where they started or heavier in five years . . . so, don't put yourself on a diet; instead, try implementing small, achievable, healthy changes to your lifestyle."
So which is it? If a well-respected fitness and weight loss expert is unable to give a straight answer what chance is there for people who really do what to lose weight?
One only has to look up at all the billboards and advertising on the passing busses to see that the advertising for new program Excess Baggage seems more prone to humiliation and "fat jokes" then offering any actual help or advice for serious dieters, instead the show looks rather more like a circus freak show made for gleefully dark entertainment.
One particular episode depicted a very overweight woman left in a room full of cakes and instructed that if she want's immunity from being voted off the show she needs to eat them until she finds the right one. Exactly how does this promote healthy weight loss? This viewer can't see anything being achieved by this other than a negative and more than slightly warped attitude to food and eating as a whole.
Right from the start contestants on these shows are put through high levels of training; the kind of training taken on by elite athletes at the top of their form. Seeming to totally forget the fact that these people are obese and some have not exercised in many years, some ever.
“The training they do is so intense from the start that people's hearts and bodies aren't ready for that," says personal trainer Dan Adair.
Biggest Loser contestant Artie Rocke was hospitalized and had his gall bladder removed. Doctors stated that it was the rapid weight loss that caused gallstones.
Excess Baggage contestant Kevin Federline, (Britney Spears ex and past backup dancer) was hospitalized several times with dehydration, exhaustion and a minor cardiac arrest.
It is clear that health and real lasting weight loss is not quite as important as entertainment to the so called personal trainers making headlines. Everyone understands that a show must be commercial but at the cost of people’s lives, is it worth it?
Sandra Fowke - Hi there! I'm Sandy, self confessed book worm and a writer through and through. I'm a thirty-something single mother of three, freelance ...
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