From the minute this so called “reality” show came on television, I have been annoyed. With every season that goes by and this show remains on the NBC network, new desperate, unknowing victims are being subjected to cruel punishment (disguised as exercise) and my annoyance grows deeper. The bar keeps getting raised after each “winner” takes home their quarter million dollar prize, cover of People magazine and talk show interviews. Seasons go by and viewers keep tuning in. As long as the ratings stay high, the network and the producers are happy, money‘s being made and who gives a crap about the message being sent.
Well..I DO!
And so do many of my Fitness /Health/ Wellness colleagues out in the real fitness world. We have remained virtually silent and in the background way too long and it is now time to speak up and let the public know what is reality and what is hyped infotainment disguised as Reality TV.
Another season - another the new crop of willing volunteers (or shall I call them victims) line up to get on and bare their souls to millions of TV viewers. Little do these poor unsuspecting, overweight contestants know the danger they will be subjected to physically, mentally, medically and most of all emotionally. The sad part is - that is exactly what the producers want in order to have this show be viewed as “authentic” while pulling at the heart strings of the unsuspecting public. Meanwhile, the actual beating heart muscle of every contestant is being put to a very dangerous test the entire time they are on the ranch. The saying “desperate people do desperate things” is very evident regarding this show. Contestants are clearly desperate and that is what makes them vulnerable and so easy to prey upon.
I recently read an LA Times article published this past November titled “The Biggest Loser: Should you mimic its weight-loss methods at home?” The article included perspectives from experts in the fitness industry (including a kinesiology professor and an IDEA fitness trainer of the year) along with the show’s co-creator/ executive producer and medical consultant. The two opposing opinions could not be more polar opposite with the fitness industry professionals comments airing on the side of “viewers beware this show may cause severe injury or heart attack” to the show’s producer and medical consultant touting that its “inspiring the obese to lose weight and they should not feel hopeless anymore because on this show people learn things no one has taught them before, like how to exercise.” That comment came from the show’s medical consultant.
Has he actually watched the show?
I would love to hear what he has to say when the first contestant actually does die of a heart attack as a result of this show. By the way, is a crash cart within arm’s reach? Do Bob and Jillian have CPR certifications and know how to operate a defibrillator? Unfortunately, it will probably take more than one person to suffer something life threatening before NBC takes notice to the dangers these contestants are subjected to. Apparently a recent stress fracture of the hip of one contestant (Laura) is not enough to send up a red flag. Little does she realize how fortunate she is to be sent packing.
As a fitness professional in this industry for more than 28 years I was curious as to how my colleagues in the health arena felt about this show. The impetus for writing this article came after reading a recent commentary in the IDEA (International Dance Exercise Association) monthly Fitness Journal regarding the “distortion of reality” of the Biggest Loser Show. The comment was written by a well respected fitness professional and educator who’s appalled at this TV reality series, and could not hold in his anger one more moment. Needless to say, I did a happy dance after reading it! -FINALLY…someone was speaking out in our trade journal – YES! His final words: “I am furious that the profession I have cultivated for 28 years is portrayed in this fashion.” I could not agree with him more.
I decided to take the baton and run with it.
I perused the internet to read everything I could about how other fitness professionals felt about this show and the comments were all very similar – mostly disdain. I decided to post a discussion question to my fitness professional groups on LinkedIn (one is the IDEA fitness group): “In your professional opinion what do you think of the show The Biggest Loser and the trainers Bob and Jillian…Do you feel the message being sent to the public is inspiring or dangerous?” The response was over whelming!
These are some of the comments:
“The biggest downside to this show is that it sets up unreal expectations of weight loss”
“As fitness professionals we need to stop associating exercise with punishment! (The simplest example is in public schools where the gym teacher will make a student do pushups when they are fooling around or not performing well).”
“The main problem I have is the lack of risk messaging that I see on the show”
“I am troubled with their choice of incentives for losing weight-using money as a prize encourages people to cheat or lose weight through unhealthy measures such as diuretics”
“The show does not explain often enough that for the average person, obese or not, anything beyond 2pounds of weight loss per week is counterproductive”
“The yelling…it makes for great ratings - but at the expense of what?”
“Great question simple answer…DANGEROUS, DANGEROUS, DANGEROUS.”
I could go on and on, but you get the picture. We are fitness professionals who tune in for five minutes and instantly realize the danger in the message being sent. However the viewing public does not. That is why this show is going into its what? Eighth season? A well informed viewing audience who knows what genuine fitness training is, along with proper nutrition and sustainable healthy weight loss practices, would never buy into this load of crap. All they see is in three months an “amazing” transformation from obese to buff and none of the smoke and mirrors. Viewers don’t see how they are being manipulated through emotional, gut-wrenching stories and crocodile tears to pull at the heartstrings.
Never mind the heartstrings. Here are some things to wrap your brain around….
Scientific fact: Healthy FAT loss is no greater than 2 pounds per week – period. For every 3,500 calories you do not consume or a 500 kcal deficit per day amounts to a 1 pound (fat) weight loss. That’s ONE POUND per week! The shows results are completely unrealistic according to basic human physiology. The weight loss numbers do not add up – it is totally impossible for this rate of FAT loss (which the show alludes to as FAT loss) to occur. Contestants show a supposed 7 day weight (fat) loss sometimes in excess of 20 pounds. A 20 pound weight loss (of FAT) in one week is 70,000 calories, which is a 10,000 calorie deficit PER DAY. An Iron Man athlete would have trouble doing that, even Michael Phelps during the Olympics would have trouble doing that and these people are unfit, overweight individuals NOT elite athletes. They should NOT even be working out 6-8 hours a day! To burn off that amount of calories would mean constant fueling. You can’t exercise 6-8 hours a day without fuel – period. Am I clear here? The contestants are NOT losing fat – they are losing mostly everything but that (like water weight). The people who are actually losing weight slowly with a more realistic number for of weight loss are penalized, humiliated and punished by being sent home with their tail tucked between their legs as if they did something horrible.
How sick is that?
Have we as a society become so desensitized that we do not recognize torment and torture to individuals disguised as “made for reality TV?”
These contestants are ridiculed and yelled at by their “trainers” (which by the way is NOT the way you get someone to embrace exercise), asked to participate while being subjected to highly injurious workouts and bated with rewards of being able to choose who gets to be eliminated while being enticed by highly caloric cupcakes. I have seen negligence regularly on the part of both trainers with regard to safety, improper technique and form in execution of movement while resistance training, spinning and kettlebell training in addition to numerous other workout routines. Nutrition education seems to be almost entirely excluded on this show in addition to any emotional (eating) issues being addressed by a professional (which I would think would be of the utmost importance). Don’t you think there are deeply rooted emotional and psychological issues that should be addressed here? What is NOT seen leaves the mind to wonder? When the Biggest Loser does do a “follow up” show they seem to glaze over the fact that most of the contestants have re-gained weight (some almost back to the size they were pre-show) in addition to the feelings of embarrassment that overwhelmed them enough to feel sequestered in their own home.
Why is this show still on the air?
Now tell me. Is this show really about health? Being socially acceptable? Or is it about making bucks by marginalizing a segment of the population based on appearance?
I say it is the latter of the three and wholeheartedly believe that all the real fitness professionals out there would absolutely agree.
Showing posts with label obesity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label obesity. Show all posts
Friday, April 17, 2009
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The "gene" connection to weight.
I recently read this article in the NYT and thought it was well worth posting (especially as my follow up to the recent letter to "O")....
For the Overweight, Bad Advice by the Spoonful
By GINA KOLATA
Weight control is not simply a matter of willpower. Genes help determine the body's "set point," which is defended by the brain.
Dieting alone is rarely successful, and relapse rates are high.
Moderate exercise, too, rarely results in substantive long-term weight loss, which requires intensive exercise.
Americans have been getting fatter for years, and with the increase in waistlines has come a surplus of conventional wisdom. If we could just return to traditional diets, if we just walk for 20 minutes a day, exercise gurus and government officials maintain, America’s excess pounds would slowly but surely melt away.
Scientists are less sanguine. Many of the so-called facts about obesity, they say, amount to speculation or oversimplification of the medical evidence. Diet and exercise do matter, they now know, but these environmental influences alone do not determine an individual’s weight. Body composition also is dictated by DNA and monitored by the brain. Bypassing these physical systems is not just a matter of willpower.
More than 66 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta. Although the number of obese women in the United States appears to be holding steady at 33 percent, for most Americans the risk is growing. The nation’s poor diet has long been the scapegoat. There have been proposals to put warning labels on sodas like those on cigarettes. There are calls to ban junk foods from schools. New York and other cities now require restaurants to disclose calorie information on their menus.
But the notion that Americans ever ate well is suspect. In 1966, when Americans were still comparatively thin, more than two billion hamburgers already had been sold in McDonald’s restaurants, noted Dr. Barry Glassner, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California. The recent rise in obesity may have more to do with our increasingly sedentary lifestyles than with the quality of our diets.
“The meals we romanticize in the past somehow leave out the reality of what people were eating,” he said. “The average meal had whole milk and ended with pie.... The typical meal had plenty of fat and calories.”
“Nostalgia is going to get us nowhere,” he added.
Neither will wishful misconceptions about the efficacy of exercise. First, the federal government told Americans to exercise for half an hour a day. Then, dietary guidelines issued in 2005 changed the advice, recommending 60 to 90 minutes of moderate exercise a day. There was an uproar; many said the goal was unrealistic for Americans. But for many scientists, the more pertinent question was whether such an exercise program would really help people lose weight.
The leisurely after-dinner walk may be pleasant, and it may be better than another night parked in front of the television. But modest exercise of this sort may not do much to reduce weight, evidence suggests.
“People don’t know that a 20-minute walk burns about 100 calories,” said Dr. Madelyn Fernstrom, director of the weight-management center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “People always overestimate the calories consumed in exercise, and underestimate the calories in food they are eating.”
Tweaking the balance is far more difficult than most people imagine, said Dr. Jeffrey Friedman, an obesity researcher at Rockefeller University. The math ought to work this way: There are 3,500 calories in a pound. If you subtract 100 calories per day by walking for 20 minutes, you ought to lose a pound every 35 days. Right?
Wrong. First, it’s difficult for an individual to hold calorie intake to a precise amount from day to day. Meals at home and in restaurants vary in size and composition; the nutrition labels on purchased foods — the best guide to calorie content — are at best rough estimates. Calorie counting is therefore an imprecise art.
Second, scientists recently have come to understand that the brain exerts astonishing control over body composition and how much individuals eat. “There are physiological mechanisms that keep us from losing weight,” said Dr. Matthew W. Gilman, the director of the obesity prevention program at Harvard Medical School/Pilgrim Health Care.
Scientists now believe that each individual has a genetically determined weight range spanning perhaps 30 pounds. Those who force their weight below nature’s preassigned levels become hungrier and eat more; several studies also show that their metabolisms slow in a variety of ways as the body tries to conserve energy and regain weight. People trying to exceed their weight range face the opposite situation: eating becomes unappealing, and their metabolisms shift into high gear.
The body’s determination to maintain its composition is why a person can skip a meal, or even fast for short periods, without losing weight. It’s also why burning an extra 100 calories a day will not alter the verdict on the bathroom scales. Struggling against the brain’s innate calorie counters, even strong-willed dieters make up for calories lost on one day with a few extra bites on the next. And they never realize it. “The system operates with 99.6 percent precision,” Dr. Friedman said.
The temptations of our environment — the sedentary living, the ready supply of rich food — may not be entirely to blame for rising obesity rates. In fact, new research suggests that the environment that most strongly influences body composition may be the very first one anybody experiences: the womb.
According to several animal studies, conditions during pregnancy, including the mother’s diet, may determine how fat the offspring are as adults. Human studies have shown that women who eat little in pregnancy, surprisingly, more often have children who grow into fat adults. More than a dozen studies have found that children are more likely to be fat if their mothers smoke during pregnancy.
The research is just beginning, true, but already it has upended some hoary myths about dieting. The body establishes its optimal weight early on, perhaps even before birth, and defends it vigorously through adulthood. As a result, weight control is difficult for most of us. And obesity, the terrible new epidemic of the developed world, is almost impossible to cure.
For the Overweight, Bad Advice by the Spoonful
By GINA KOLATA
Weight control is not simply a matter of willpower. Genes help determine the body's "set point," which is defended by the brain.
Dieting alone is rarely successful, and relapse rates are high.
Moderate exercise, too, rarely results in substantive long-term weight loss, which requires intensive exercise.
Americans have been getting fatter for years, and with the increase in waistlines has come a surplus of conventional wisdom. If we could just return to traditional diets, if we just walk for 20 minutes a day, exercise gurus and government officials maintain, America’s excess pounds would slowly but surely melt away.
Scientists are less sanguine. Many of the so-called facts about obesity, they say, amount to speculation or oversimplification of the medical evidence. Diet and exercise do matter, they now know, but these environmental influences alone do not determine an individual’s weight. Body composition also is dictated by DNA and monitored by the brain. Bypassing these physical systems is not just a matter of willpower.
More than 66 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta. Although the number of obese women in the United States appears to be holding steady at 33 percent, for most Americans the risk is growing. The nation’s poor diet has long been the scapegoat. There have been proposals to put warning labels on sodas like those on cigarettes. There are calls to ban junk foods from schools. New York and other cities now require restaurants to disclose calorie information on their menus.
But the notion that Americans ever ate well is suspect. In 1966, when Americans were still comparatively thin, more than two billion hamburgers already had been sold in McDonald’s restaurants, noted Dr. Barry Glassner, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California. The recent rise in obesity may have more to do with our increasingly sedentary lifestyles than with the quality of our diets.
“The meals we romanticize in the past somehow leave out the reality of what people were eating,” he said. “The average meal had whole milk and ended with pie.... The typical meal had plenty of fat and calories.”
“Nostalgia is going to get us nowhere,” he added.
Neither will wishful misconceptions about the efficacy of exercise. First, the federal government told Americans to exercise for half an hour a day. Then, dietary guidelines issued in 2005 changed the advice, recommending 60 to 90 minutes of moderate exercise a day. There was an uproar; many said the goal was unrealistic for Americans. But for many scientists, the more pertinent question was whether such an exercise program would really help people lose weight.
The leisurely after-dinner walk may be pleasant, and it may be better than another night parked in front of the television. But modest exercise of this sort may not do much to reduce weight, evidence suggests.
“People don’t know that a 20-minute walk burns about 100 calories,” said Dr. Madelyn Fernstrom, director of the weight-management center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “People always overestimate the calories consumed in exercise, and underestimate the calories in food they are eating.”
Tweaking the balance is far more difficult than most people imagine, said Dr. Jeffrey Friedman, an obesity researcher at Rockefeller University. The math ought to work this way: There are 3,500 calories in a pound. If you subtract 100 calories per day by walking for 20 minutes, you ought to lose a pound every 35 days. Right?
Wrong. First, it’s difficult for an individual to hold calorie intake to a precise amount from day to day. Meals at home and in restaurants vary in size and composition; the nutrition labels on purchased foods — the best guide to calorie content — are at best rough estimates. Calorie counting is therefore an imprecise art.
Second, scientists recently have come to understand that the brain exerts astonishing control over body composition and how much individuals eat. “There are physiological mechanisms that keep us from losing weight,” said Dr. Matthew W. Gilman, the director of the obesity prevention program at Harvard Medical School/Pilgrim Health Care.
Scientists now believe that each individual has a genetically determined weight range spanning perhaps 30 pounds. Those who force their weight below nature’s preassigned levels become hungrier and eat more; several studies also show that their metabolisms slow in a variety of ways as the body tries to conserve energy and regain weight. People trying to exceed their weight range face the opposite situation: eating becomes unappealing, and their metabolisms shift into high gear.
The body’s determination to maintain its composition is why a person can skip a meal, or even fast for short periods, without losing weight. It’s also why burning an extra 100 calories a day will not alter the verdict on the bathroom scales. Struggling against the brain’s innate calorie counters, even strong-willed dieters make up for calories lost on one day with a few extra bites on the next. And they never realize it. “The system operates with 99.6 percent precision,” Dr. Friedman said.
The temptations of our environment — the sedentary living, the ready supply of rich food — may not be entirely to blame for rising obesity rates. In fact, new research suggests that the environment that most strongly influences body composition may be the very first one anybody experiences: the womb.
According to several animal studies, conditions during pregnancy, including the mother’s diet, may determine how fat the offspring are as adults. Human studies have shown that women who eat little in pregnancy, surprisingly, more often have children who grow into fat adults. More than a dozen studies have found that children are more likely to be fat if their mothers smoke during pregnancy.
The research is just beginning, true, but already it has upended some hoary myths about dieting. The body establishes its optimal weight early on, perhaps even before birth, and defends it vigorously through adulthood. As a result, weight control is difficult for most of us. And obesity, the terrible new epidemic of the developed world, is almost impossible to cure.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
