Watching Our Weights by Melissa Zimdars

Author:Melissa Zimdars [Zimdars, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Media Studies, Health & Fitness, Diet & Nutrition, Weight Loss, Disease & Health Issues, Women's Studies
ISBN: 9780813593562
Google: _-ZWDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 2019-02-07T04:25:44+00:00

Figure 10   Lindsey on season 2 of I Used to Be Fat (2011)

Furthermore, on the final episode of season 1 of I Used to Be Fat, several of the participants are shown having gained weight back, including Gabriella and McKenzie. McKenzie even says about “maintaining” her body weight, “I’m not going to lie, it’s really hard.” In addition to the almost expected post-show weight gain, other participants barely finish, quit, or are “fired” from weight-loss programs just like on Revenge Body. Tanner, a season 1, episode 8 participant on I Used to Be Fat, loses thirty-seven pounds of his one-hundred-pound goal but gradually becomes unmotivated to lose more because he no longer wants to spend all of his free time working out. Ty (season 4, episode 1) on Extreme Weight Loss ultimately quits the program after a failed baseball deal and turns down an offer of “living” with Powell in Arizona to instead stay near his family and go back to his pre-show life.

A major weight-loss “failure” can also be seen in season 10 of The Biggest Loser where all of the contestants temporarily “join” the Marines. When the contestants are first told they will be training with the military, The Biggest Loser host, Alison Sweeney, explains to them, “You are halfway through the season, and you should be proud of how far you’ve come, but if you thought the first six weeks were a battle, this next week is going to be an all-out war.” While highlighting the strenuous and difficult nature of the week ahead, this statement also implicitly downplays the effectiveness of The Biggest Loser’s intervention and training practices. One contestant, Jesse, similarly and unintentionally downplays his first six weeks at The Biggest Loser ranch while privileging the power of the military: “We all still have the mindset of ‘Hey, I’m the fat guy. I can’t cut it with the Marines.’ This might be kind of the kick start we need.” This statement implies that The Biggest Loser’s initial boot-camp-style workout was perhaps inefficient at maintaining discipline or garnering big weight-loss numbers long term.

The Marines episode also features contestants simultaneously engaging in strenuous physical activity and making “poor” food decisions during the week they are living on the base, which shows that the discipline they experienced the first six weeks on the show did not translate into self-disciplined eating decisions. Furthermore, the Marine base as a disciplinary site is also framed as not being conducive for weight loss. One contestant, Jesse, even states, “Here at the mess hall the options are not the options we would have at the ranch. Sausage. French toast. I anticipate a very grueling workout today and I decided I need the calories.” Later, during the usual end-of-episode weigh-in, another contestant, Lisa, complains, “Eating in the mess hall … high sodium food. It hinders weight loss. We just had very little control over the food that we ate this week,” and another, Elizabeth, laments, “I don’t know what happened because I did put in the work.

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