Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Last week, reinvigorated by some fresh young blood, season 14 of the prime-time weight loss extravaganza known as The Biggest Loser enjoyed its most watched premiere in its nine-year history. And when I say young blood I mean it, as this season marks the first time that The Biggest Loser has included children in the mix -- two 13-year-olds and one 16-year-old round out the cast.
While I personally find the show to be an emotionally and physically abusive, misinformative, horror show, it's clearly beloved and trusted by many -- that record premiere was reported to have been viewed by over 7-million people. And while my personal opinions shouldn't concern you, the peer-reviewed medical literature stemming from The Biggest Loser, as well as the AAP's implicit endorsement of the show, should.
Perhaps not surprisingly given what appears to be the overarching theme of the show -- that obesity is the individually controlled consequence of gluttony and laziness -- a study published in the journal Obesity this past May demonstrated that watching even a single episode of The Biggest Loser dramatically increased hateful weight bias among viewers -- an effect that was heightened among non-overweight viewers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/yoni-freedhoff/biggest-loser-kids-_b_2473934.html
While I personally find the show to be an emotionally and physically abusive, misinformative, horror show, it's clearly beloved and trusted by many -- that record premiere was reported to have been viewed by over 7-million people. And while my personal opinions shouldn't concern you, the peer-reviewed medical literature stemming from The Biggest Loser, as well as the AAP's implicit endorsement of the show, should.
Perhaps not surprisingly given what appears to be the overarching theme of the show -- that obesity is the individually controlled consequence of gluttony and laziness -- a study published in the journal Obesity this past May demonstrated that watching even a single episode of The Biggest Loser dramatically increased hateful weight bias among viewers -- an effect that was heightened among non-overweight viewers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/yoni-freedhoff/biggest-loser-kids-_b_2473934.html